AFRICAN AIR MAIL

Hokitika Guardian, 2 March 1931, Page 5

AFRICAN AIR MAIL

TN ATT GUR ATT ON OF FIRST SECTION. ORGANISATION OF ROUTE. (By Telegraph—Per Press Association) RUGBY, February 26. The first air mail from London on the 2G70 miles Central Africa section of the Imperial Airways London-Cape Town route will leave Croydon on Saturday morning. At Cairo the mails will be transferred to a big Armstrong-Sid-deley aircraft which will carry them to Khartoum. Here they will be placed on board a Short flying boat and will be flown, above rivers and lakes, to Mwanza, on the shores of Lake Victoria, in Tanganyika Territory, the temporary terminus of the Central Africa sector of the airway. When the remaining sections of the African airway are in operation, it will he possible to accomplish the air journey of 8000 miles from London to Cape Town in 11 days, over tile most completely organised route of its kind in the world. Between Cairo and Cape Town are 27 main aerodromes, and 30 subsidiary alighting points, many of th e latter having had to he made in the heart of the virgin bush, while 17 wireless stations have been installed. At no time while in flight along any section of the airway will the aircraft be out of wireless touch with the land stations. At a miniber of alighting points where night halts will he made, the Imperial Airways have established hotels and rest houses.