AIR FLYING.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 January 1920, Page 3

AIR FLYING.

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) A FRENCH PROJECT. LONDON, Dec. 29. Reuter’s correspondent at Paris states that a. French aeroplane in April or May will attempt to fly from Dakar (Senegal) to Pernambuco (Brazil). A. special machine has been constructed capable of a non-stop flight of 3000 miles. The object of the flight is to establish a trans-Atlantic service. The Paris correspondent of “ The Times states that, the airman Pillon looped the loop 29 times in five minutes losing only 50 yards altitude.

FIGHTING AEROPLANES. LONDON, Dec. 30,

A former squadron commander, in a, letter to “ The Times,” vividly pictures the fighting powers of massed aeroplanes. He supports General Seely’s warning regarding the German menace.

“Will ten of the best British antiaircraft batteries,” he asks, “undertake to stop a torpedo machine diving at their centre at a speed of 250 miles an hour, with engine shut, off?” .“Will any navy unit do what the batteries will not guarantee to do after from four to five years’ practice?”

“ The employment of perhaps hundreds of thousands of commercial machines, adapted to carry large loads of bobs and chemicals would lie capable of paralysing army transport. Germany lias far outdistanced competitors in commercial aviation, and has significantly formed an aerial league, resembling the old navy league. Why?”