AIR TRAVEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 26, 31 July 1939, Page 10

AIR TRAVEL

ENGLAND-AUSTRALIA i ADDRESS TO N.Z. CLUB A description of the journey by air to Australia from England was described at the New Zealand Club's luncheon today by Mr. C. M. Bruce, C.8., 0.8. E., a former member of the British Admiralty secretariat, who arrived in New Zealand three weeks ago at the request of the New Zealand Government to assist the Committee of Inquiry into the conditions of service in the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy. After expressing his appreciation of the kindness and hospitality he had received at the hands of all those he had come into contact with in the Do | minion, Mr. Bruce said that eighteen | months ago, when he was attending a dinner in London, a Wellingtonian m- | vited him to vdsit New Zealand. He | little thought then that the opportunity J i would ever come his way. He was j sent for by his old Department, the Admiralty, on June 23 and asked if he would undertake to assist on the committee appointed by the New Zealand Government. He left London on the night of June 28, flying to Amsterdam, where he caught the Dutch air liner the following morning. He travelled by the Royal Dutch Air Line and not by Imperial Airways'to avoid a i wait of a week in Sydney for a boat, to New Zealand. Mr. Bruce described the successive stages of the trip and mentioned the various famous cities at which stops were made, including Budapest, Bagdad, Basra, Karachi, Jodpur, Rangoon, Penang, Singapore, and Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, where he changed to a smaller machine to complete the journey. He said New Zealanders would probably be interested to know that the big machine in which he covered the journey from Amsterdam to Batavia was piloted by Captain Van Dyke, who was the pilot accompanying Kingsford-Smith when he crossed the Atlantic. Meals served in the air. intense heat in Asia Minor, and other features of air travel were mentioned by Mr. Bruce. He said that he breakfasted one morning at Batavia in the cooling draught of an electric fan, and that when he reached Australia the same evening the temperature was 40 de- : grees. The crossing of the Timor Sea |in the smaller machine was accomplished, thanks to a following wind, |at an average speed of 250 miles an j hour. I "Looking down from the air upon the many famous cities over which we passed was a very memorable experience," he said. "From the great height at which we generally Hew it was impossible to see any sign of life and all j those large cities appeared to be cities of the dead." If anyone contemplated air travel they would find it extr.. i ordinarily pleasant provided they did jnot undertake too long a journey in one stage with the necessity of rising lin the early hours of the morning for ! a number of days on end.