ATLANTIC BY AIR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 120, 22 May 1937, Page 8

ATLANTIC BY AIR

GERMANY PLANS A SERVICE

Germany's new aeroplane "mother ship" the Friesenland, has been launched at Kiel, and is shortly to proceed to Horta, in the Azores, where she will be stationed for the summer, says the "Daily Telegraph/ . Aeroplanes will be catapulted from her for the 2500 miles flight to New York where another "mother ,ship, the Schwabenland, .will receive them. The Schwabenland was in New York Harbour last year for German trans-Atlantic air mail experiments. ,and the Aeolus, a flying.boat, was catapulted from her deck and flew to Horta in. 17 hours 50 minut* s last September. • '•'■•■ ' . The flying boats to be used on the mail service are the Aeolus_ -and Zephyr, a -D'ornier type, weighing 10 tons and fitted with two engines of 550 hp. The catapulting'apparatus, on the Schwabenland- and Friesenland is capable of launching aeroplanes weighing 16 tons. , '• . •' These "mother ships" also serve1 a valuable secondary purpose as meteorological, stations.- . -, The Germans intend to use Tenenfle as a station on- fieir Atlantic services. The small aerodrome there is being rapidly enlarged, the work involving muW blasting of solid rock and the filling up of hollows. British experimental flights over the North Atlantic will begin in May, but there fs no intention of attempting a regular service this year, and it is extremely doubtful whether it will be possible before 1939. Great Britain is expected shortly to make a bid for the South Atlantic^ service over which French and German airlines are already operating, and the granting of a contract is expected to be the subject _of an announcement shortly. In this year.s Air Estimates provision is made only for experimental flights on the South Atlantic.