IN THE AIR.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 October 1918, Page 4

IN THE AIR.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

INTERESTING PRE DICTIONS

Some interesting references to the development of (he air service were made by Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward iii their speeches at the Wellington civic functions. The returned Ministers reported an enormous expansion of the air forces, and predicted the early use of aereplanes for the carriage of mails and passengers. Mr Massey said that it was impossible for people in New Zealand to know what had been done by the United Kingdom in regard to the air service. Much of the development of the aic service was secret, and the whole story could not he told until after the war. But he could say that the number of aeroplanes used by the British forces was much larger than the number in the possession or the Germans. The British machines, moreover, were faster, stronger, and more powerful than the German machines. The British aeroplanes were the best in the world to-day. Other nations had tried to copy them, but for some reason they had not been snccessfnl in producing machines of the same efficiency. The British airmen were as snpeiior to the German airmen ai their machines were better than the German machines They were more experienced, more courageous, more resourceful. No other airmen in the world could equal them Tt was impossible to say now what the future of the air service would be, but there was not the least doubt that Britain had secured and was holding supremacy in the air.

Sir Joseph Ward said that it was not possible io bo in England long without getting an impression of the extraordinary development of the aeroplanes. Not long ago it haa been considered a wonderful thing for a Hying man to “ loop the But to-day the airmen “ looped the loop ” as a matter of daily routine. They did it backwards and sideways. The youths who were being trained to fly were taught topeiforni these extraordinary evolutions in the air in order that they might have confidence in themselves and ilieir machines. Pie had been in Paris when some American troops were marching down one of the main streets. Following these troops, barely higher than the roofs of the bouses, flew three French aeroplants, lilting occasionally to clear a telephone wire. Presently these aeroplanes began to turn somersaults in the air, apparently only about fifty feet above tho heads of the marching soldiers. The control was evidently complete and the-confidence of the pilots perfect. He had paid a visit (o the Handley Page Works in England, and had seen there an aeroplane that was capable nf going up with a load of fifteen tons. That machine would lift 100 persons into the air and travel with them at the rate of 125 miles an hour. It conld carry fuel for a journey of 1,000 miles with its load. Air Handley Page, who w’us a recognised authority, had assured him tHat this machine could carry people across the Atlantic, from the French coast to the American coast, with great safety and at very high speed. If a journey of that kind was possible, and he had no doubt it was, then there was nothing to prevent an aeroplane flying from England to New Zealand by stages. It, would cross the Pacific via Vancouver, Honolulu and Fiji. When tlie war was ended, added Sir Joseph Ward, passengers and mails would be carried across the oceans by aeroplane. Mails -would be tarried between Sydney and Wellington by aeroplane in ten hours. That was a development that was bound to come. It was within the range of practical effort already. The war had produced an enormous advance in science. It had pushed the world forward more than a century in some respects, and in no field had the advance been more marked than in the field of flight. The aeroplane was going to play a great part in the world. He did not believe that it would altogether displace passenger steamers for ocean travel. But it was going to carry passengers across the oceans in the near future. There was no possible doubt about that.