GREAT POSSIBILITIES

Evening Post, Issue 51, 2 March 1931, Page 10

GREAT POSSIBILITIES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, Bth January. A vision of airways linking some of the more remote territories of Empire is raised by the report on a visit paid by Mr. W. A. Campbell, one of the civil aviation officers of tho Air Ministry, to West Africa. Nigeria, Gambia, the Gold Coast, Siena, Leone—these are names which have yet to be found in any guide book to world airways. The great air route soon to be opened through Africa from Cairo to Capo Town lies thousands of miles to the east; tho Trench terminus of the air mail line from Paris and Morocco is, it is true, at Dakar, a small town in French Senegal only 100 miles from Bnthurst in the Gambia, but no air connections yet exist. Aeroplanes are seldom seen in most parts of this .vast area. Koyiil Air Force bombers which recently traversed Africa from Khartoum to Bathurst flew many hu7idreds of miles through virgin "air, passing over great tracts where airmen had' never previously ventured. , Yet the region seems destined to draw abounding profit from the establishment of air services. Surface transport, by land or water, is generally slow and tedious. FLYING BOATS AND AMPHIBIANS. Mr. Campbell considers that certain routes' might be placed in immediate operations, Chief of these is a line, operated by flying boats, between Calabar in Nigeria and St. Louis or Daker in French Senegal. Along this route, measuring 2300 miles of coast-line, the flying machines would call at Bathurst, Bolama (Portuguese Guinea), Freetown, Monrovia (capital of the Negro State, Liberia), Grand Bassam (French Ivory Coast), Takoradi, the great port in tho Gold Coast, and Lagos. Then inland, up the.Niger Kiverj amphibian 'planes might penetr.^3 nearly a,thousand miles to a junction at the town of Zinder with the Franco-Belgian airway across the Sahara- to Europe. Seaplanes or amphibians might also ply .regularly along the Benue, a huge tributary of the Niger, for 125 miles from the confluence, tapping other remote districts. Good laud aerodromes exist ... in Nigeria and the Gambia, out the immediate future calls for solely water-oper-ated or amphibious aircraft, classes of flying machine in which Britain fairly claims design achievement not surpassed by any other aircraft producing nation. Only one of tho suggested stages, that of 520 miles between Grand Bassam and\Monrovia, is longer "(than any yet flown. regularly to schedule ■by a flying boat carrying a full commercial load, and latest type British boats not yet in service could '. easily ' fly comparable distances, regularly without alighting. Recommendations to the Governments of the four British colonies in the region have followed Mr. Campbell's visit, and problems connected with the establishment of a flying boat service from Calabar to French Senegal are enjoying the close attention of experts and of the Colonial Oifico. '< '•'