AIR-MINDED ARABS BACK AVIATION

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5300, 13 January 1947, Page 3

AIR-MINDED ARABS BACK AVIATION

■ > Arabs taking to the air instead o£ journeying by steed or camel train will cramp the style of the romantic novelists and scenario writers. But the Arabs are not only enthusiastic about flying, they back their enthusiasrn with financial eni'.erprise, as General Sanders, fonnerly with the R.A.F. testifies. While on operational duties in Transjordan he said- to himself, "What! No air line here?" Now, 011 the cve of returning to start an air line, he has told thc B.B.C. overseas audience dhe story. His first idea was for a school of instruction: to train Arabs to -be pilots. He had a two-hours talk about his scheme to an Arab tradesman, Tewfik-kattan, who asked him what it would eosit. Mr. Sanders toki him £10,0'00. The answer: "You can have that to-night," nearly caused the airman to fall out of his chair. Bef-ore lotng( the Ar;ahs ^ccepted S-anders' conrplete plan for a new air line, and, the speaker summe-d' up, "the whole business was settled on the spot by hve Arahs and an Engiishman who's their commercial consultant," the consultant -being Sanders himself, of course. The hangars and most of the other equipment are already on- the way, aird Sanders and some of his staff are taking off with a delivery flight -of eight planes co open up the service. The staff will number round about fifty: -16 Englishmen and the rest Arabs. The service will fly -pi'lgrims to Jedda, as -near as he can get to Mecea. But iduring some seasons of the year there will he sand-storms, with sand spirals reaching any-ihing up to 7000 feet. And f orced landings in the desert are no picnic. Less exeiting for the pilots, but th-rilling for the reeipients, will be the freighting of fish from Akabar to Amman — from sea to frying-pan in under two hours.