ROYAL AIR FORCE

Evening Star, Issue 19658, 10 September 1927, Page 4

ROYAL AIR FORCE

FLYING BOATS' TOUR TO INDIA AND AUSTRALIA. (British Official News.) Press Association— By Wireless—CopyrightRUGBY, September 8. A fleet of largo Royal Air Force Hying'"boats will begin about tho middle of next month a journey from England to tho East, which is expected to include an aerial tour of the Indian coast and a complete circuit of Australia. The machines will leave Plymouth, whence their route will ho down the Garonne Valley to the Mediterranean, Marseilles, the Italian western coast, Suda Bay, Crete, Aboukir, Alexnndrctta, Bagdad, Persian Gulf, and Karachi. Tho craft chosen for the cruise are supermarine Southampton boats with hulls of stainless steel, each driven hy 2,500 horse-power Napier engines at an average speed of 00 miles per hour. When fully loaded each boat weighs approximately nine tons, and carries enough fuel lor a, continuous voyage of 2,ooomiles. The boats are similar in design to the Southampton planes now in general use with tho Royal Air Force, hut tho metal hull is 5001 b lighter than the wooden hull, and does not absorb'water. Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation, inspected suitable landing areas on the outskirts of Liverpool, which it is proposed to make an air port. The Air .Ministry is stated to he favorable to making Liverpool a halfway air port between London and Scollantl and London and Ireland. Imperial Airways are similarly inclined, and several air line companies are willing to make experiments in conveying Atlantic passengers between Liverpool and tho Continent.