FROM COOK TO THE AIR CLIPPER.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 62, 31 March 1937, Page 4

FROM COOK TO THE AIR CLIPPER.

With leisurely efficiency one of the huge flying clippers of Pan-American Airways landed on the waters of Waitemata Harbour yesterday aftefnoon, completing its survey flight from S an Franciseo to Auckland. A vast crowd welcomed the visitor from the eastern sky, and New Zealand is to-day vividly aware that the Pacific Ocean has become a swift communication lane rather than a vast dividing waste. When the navigators of old sailed into unknown seas, and charted new lands, trade, conquest and civili&ation followed ' slowly at long intervals. Between Tasman and Cook more thaji a hundred years elapsed, and another seventy years passed before Hobson came to control the adventurous traders who were thronging to these shores. N.early a century of change has made New Zealand a yast favmland with yising and prosperous cities. It is less than ten years since Kingsford Smith spanned the Tasman Sea in a single day with the old Southern Cross, and since ihen the oceans of the world have been criss-crossed by. numerpus intrepid pioneers of the air. In that brief period both Kingsford Smith and his partner in adventure, Ulm, have earned the fame and deaths of those who greatly dare. In that period also science, courage and skill have brought ayiation to the stage where misadventure is the rarity. The arrival of the clipper in Auckland is a reminder of how greatly accelerated is the advance of engineering skill and human enterprise in comparison with achievements of the immediatejy past century. Cook's visit marked the end of one Uge and started events that were to change the face of New Zealand. Take jnto account the accelerated rate of developjnent compared with that of a hundred years ago, and the visit of the American clipper presages changes in the life of New Zealand that can easily outstrip the imagination. The flight of the clipper is something much more than a mere demonstration of what reliable engines and skiilful navigators can do. . It is an orderly businesslike mapping of a route, and testing of mechanical performance, for the pur- • pose of establishing a regular commercial service between the American mainland and New Zealand. When this service is inaugurated flying-boats will leave Auckland for San Franciseo at intervals of at least onee a fortnight. The frequency will increase if the traffic warrants it. The next step in the development of the airways of the Pacific will be the Tasman Sea section linking New Zealand with Australia, who in turn is linked by Imperial Airways with Great Britain. New Zealand thus becomes the junction point where the old and the new world will meet in the commercial airways system of the world. It is not without significance that the names of the aviators o£ Australia and New Zealand have been written in the skies of the world, The pioneers of the air who L .ve risked and given their lives will for ever share something of the glory of aehievement that will follow upon the coming of New Zealand 's first transocean airways service. . v