Getting Ready for Flight to N.Z.

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 400, 14 July 1928, Page 5

Getting Ready for Flight to N.Z.

ENGINE EXPERT’S WORK NEW PACIFIC STEAMERS SYDNEY, July 6, 1928. Arrangements for the flight across the Tasman Sea by Squadron-Leader Kingsford Smith and Flight-Lieuten-ant Ulm are well advanced and it is expected that the big plane will take the air on this trip at the end of this month. On Thursday a navigator was appointed. He is Mr. Litchfield, third oilicer of the Waiotapu. who wa* serving in that capacity in the Tahiti when the Australian airmen travelled to San Francisco last year. Kingsford Smith had set his mind on Mr. Litchfield. for whom he has a high regard as a navigator. Yesterday the Ventura brought another man of vital importance to the success of the flight. This is Air. C. C. Maidment. engineer of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, who has come to tune up the three Whirlwind motors of the Southern Cross. He recently flew with Colonel Lindbergh in America. May Make Flight Himself

Mr. Maidment may fly across the Tasman with Squadron-Leader Kingsford Smith. There is a seat still available. Air. Afaidment's duties carry him to far places, for wherever one of his firm’s engines is, there he goes to see that it is functioning well. He is an Englishman, and, it is said, has helped much to perfect the aerial engine. The flight across the Pacific, he said, provided the most severe test of the Whirlwind engines. Credit to Australians

Another passenger by the Ventura was Mr. C. D. Paterson, advertising manager of Cordon and Gotch, who has returned from the conference of Pacific Advertising Club in Honolulu. Air. Paterson visited San Francisco, and as his ship eneter the Golden Gate the Southern Cross was just leaving California. He found that the newspapers were most generous in giving all credit to the Australians for the flight, the two Americans on board being scarcely mentioned. When news of the airmen’s arrival at Honolulu came through, the newsboys were shouting. “Full account of Australian flight,” and again when they reached Suva, the cry was, “Anzacs safe at Suva.” He found the Californians whom lie talked with about the flight equally generous in their praise of Kingsford Smith and Ulm. Forestry Conference

Travelling by the Ventura, the British Empire oFrestry delegates. Major Furse and Air. R. L. Robinson, reached Sydney yesterday. They are the advance guard, come to assist the Australian authorities to arrange the conference, which wili begin in Perth on August 25 and close its Australian syllabus in Sydney on October 4, when it will move on to Wellington and Auckland. Major Furse is one of Air. Amery’s secretaries in the Colonial Office. Mr. Robinson was the South Australian Rhodes Scholar in 1905 and has had a brilliant career at Oxford and on the Forestry Commission, of which he is a member. Both men are on the Board of Governors of the Imperial Institute of Forestry and members of the Standing Committee of the Empire Forestry Conference, which carries on the work between conferences. Apart from Australian and New Zealand delegates, 21 will arrive from 13 other countries within the Empire. including Cyprus, Palestine, Gold Coast, Kenya, Malaya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, North Borneo, Tanganyika. Great Britain, India, Canada and South Africa. New Pacific Steamers

News was brought by the Ventura of the intention of the Matson Line now operating the Oceanic Line, to build two big 18-knot liners, under the provisions of the Jones-White Bill recently passed by Congress to assist shipowners to supplement their fleets. Tne vessels are to be built in accordance with Government standards, and a large proportion of the money is lent by the Government at a low rate of interest. The Bill was passed to enable the proposed 30-knot Atlantic service to London to be established. A mjich higher speed is called for there than on the Pacific. In war time the ships must be available for national service. The Union Company’s new motor-ship will be in commission before the Aiatson liners, and if the Niagara is placed on the San Francisco run she should be well established before they come along. On top of the news of these trans-Pacific improvements, to-day the Royal Packet Navigation Company’s new ship Nieuw Zeeland arrived here on her maiden voyage, so that there is every indicaLon that travel comforts are being well looked after. The Nieuw Zeeland is furnished and decorated on lines of Maori art and historic sentiment, immortalising Abel Tasman, who discovered New Zealand.