FLYING BOATS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5244, 27 February 1928, Page 1

FLYING BOATS.

ON A WORLD JOURNEY. FITTED UP LIKE YACHTS. The Southampton supeimarine flying boats may arrive in Sydney from England about the middle of August, states a recent issue of the Sydney Morning Herald. They are not hurrying the trip. The average length of their stages is about 400 miles and the longest is 625 miles—between Melbourne and Sydney.

About the same time the two supermarine boats built rather later for the Australian Air Force may arrive in the Commonwealth, and probably they will accompany the Englishmen along the Australian seaboard 1 . Them Captain Cave-Brown-Cave will take Ms squadron to Singapore —its permanent base. Theirs is the most extensive flight undertaken by the flying boats of any nation. Aircraft designers are racing even man’s imagination. Things we dreamt of last night are achieved to-day. Tomorrow they are out of date. PrO'gi'ess is nowhere so headlong aisi in aeronautics. Scarcely more than ,a year ago supermarine all-metal boats of the type which Group-Captain Cave-Brown-Cave Is leading ot Australia were the anxious hope of designers. On January 19 four of them left Trincomalee, Ceylon, in continuanfce of their leisurely cruise. When they reach Sydney in August we shall probably have heard of. new developments, new records, nejv luxuries in marine aircraft, which will eclipse .even these extraordinary machines But at the •moment they are the last word on the subject.

When* you have heard, what these flyinig boats can do, what comforts they provide, what assurances, of safety and speed, you feel that the air really is conquered. Nqwthat you can be in the air without knowing that you are off the ground away fro.m big kitchens and the sources of your fastidious cooking, trips up and d'own the globe cease to have half as many terrors as a threepenny ride in a tramcar. A few a year ago even, life in, a flying bo.at was often as comfortable as living in a barrel. The machines could not spare the room or the weight for luxuries, but lighter hulls of metal, and developments in aero-dynamics have provided for the officers flying now to Australia homes not less delightful than they would 1 find on tjie yachts people navigate round the seas. Consider first the quarter-deck. It is one of .the most agreeable improvements the designer, Mr R. J. Mitchell, has been able to contrive. Aviators' have.always suffered pangs of jealous inferiority when they saw how officers of cruisers, destroyers, battleships, and so on could walk up and down, a quarter-deck. They felt that they lacked a gesture somehow. All that is. changed by the quarter-deck built by fitting a firm surface to the centre section of the lower wing, which provides an area sufficient for the patrol of several officers, at once. But more than) that, it provides a place where hammocks may be slung on unbearable tropical, nights, when the collapsible bunks, folding against the side of the hull, are scarcely to be endured. In the day-time, if the boat is anchored in sOme scorching, suffocating, breathless harbour, where there is no base and no shelter for the. frizzling men, .sum awnings may be drawn fore and aft, and in the big portholes Scoops may be placed to catch the remotest suggestion of a draught. In that harbour anchors will hold the boat against any but the heaviest seas. There is not the least reason why the men should stir for days on end, if they don’t wish to.

For innumerable lockers contain large supplies of food, supplemented by emergency rations, stored elsewhere, and, gastronomic triumph, doublej-burner stoves, set in a specially enclosed cooking tray, provide hot meals regularly. . This exquisite amelioration of hard life is possible because the petrol is carried in wing tanks outside the hull. There too, are special containers for fresh water. In short, man .has carried liis drawing-room and his chef into the air oil! hard service business. Naval tradition dominates the seaplane branch of the Air Force, and the officers of the new Southampton supermarine boats enjoy a minor triumph when they contemplate their . flag halyards between the top and the bottom centre wings, from .which each boat may fly the Royal. Air Force flag as the signal of the commander. Small collapsibe skiffs of rubber are a comfort, but beyonid all. the luxuries pro|vided them, the men probably welcome most the special quick-firing pumps which force the petrol into the large wing tanks. Refuelling on a cruise like this is the despair of the most enthusiastic, especially when they must carry the fuel off from an open beach, prepared to, take the boat away immediately the wind rises. Experts hope also that from this cruise they may gain experience which will enable them to reinforce various points on the Imperial air routes with machines drawn from England and other parts of the Empire. Elveryone is asking where the development of speed is to end. Some authorities say that it has reached itisj limit, and that from this moment the ingenuity and patience of airmen must be devoted to opening up routes which will tie the cornlers of the earth together. The supermarines are out to see how it may be done.