The Sun SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1928 THE WAY OF EAGLES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 442, 25 August 1928, Page 8

The Sun SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1928 THE WAY OF EAGLES

OEFORE the end of this year the largest airship in the world will fly gleaming over London. It should serve as a superb answer to a British newspaper’s assertion the other day that the record of Great Britain in comparison with that of Germany in respect of progressive aviation is humiliating, alarming, and a disgrace. The new craft upon which a hundred British artisans are working day and night to give Commander Burney’s flying mammoth form and life is the 11100, whose maiden trip will be across_ the Atlantic. It will herald an enterprise, not without the spice of adventure, that is expected to open up a new world of commerce richer than was the Spanish Main to the daringships of Elizabethan days. The RIOO will be as big as ihe Mauretania. There would be little more than space enough in the whole length of the double football grounds in Eden Park to moor it. If it were anchored crosswise in the Rangitoto Channel the fairway for ocean-going liners would be blocked. It is over 236 yards long. This gigantic air-liner will carry a hundred passengers with their luggage over a range of 3,500 miles in calm air at a cruising speed of about seventy miles an hour. Starting together from Auckland, the Limited Express would still he snorting near Taihape while the RIOO skimmed down the Hutt Valley. Its projected successor will be half as big again, able to carry 156 passengers for 6,000 miles at a cruising speed of 9-5 miles an hour. Thus Britain’s new airship should be some consolation for the. voluble pessimists who belittle British enterprise and sit by their rivers and weep over British decadence. Of course, it has to be admitted that in commercial aviation Germany leads., But Germany’s lead is neither surprising nor alarming. The Treaty of Versailles forbade. Germany to build military aircraft. This embargo merely inspired the restricted Germans to concentrate activity and huge expenditure on the construction of passenger air-liners, and the development of widespread and profitable flying services. . The craft of Junkers and the Luft Hansa Company fly daily across Europe all the year round. And the Junkers firm plans to establish air-lines from Ireland to the Continent across the heart of England. It may be humiliating to British pride.to suffer the spectacle of German aircraft winging- over. the kingdom, and to realise that Germany operates 14,500 miles of European air routes as against France’s 8,000 miles and Great Britain’s meagre 1,000 miles, but if it he a disgrace one should remember that Britain did not lose in the world war, and has had to pay the stillest price for victory. The wonder of the age is that Great Britain has been able to do so many splendid things out of a tangled thicket of unprecedented difficulties, and has the intention with indomitable courage to do a great deal more. And time will see her flag flj mg proudly along thousands of leagues of Empire air-routes. Meanwhile, her sons hold the Schneider Cup and many other records, while some of her grandsons have done pretty well, indeed, in the air. Jules Verne’s imperturbable Mr. Fogg intrigued the reading world years ago by completing a circuit of the physical world in 80 days. Bert Hinkler, in a Moth plane hopped airily from London to Australia in 17 days! And sane men, not given to day-dreaming, visualise quite confidently a swift-coming time when Englishmen will fly around the world in ten days. As things are to-day, the growth and achievements in commercial air transport are nothing less than wonderful. Within a midsummer week in the Old Wbrld one may speed right i ound Europe at 100 miles an hour, travel 2,500 miles above nine countries, make sight-seeing tours of seven of the world’s most attractive cities, and all this at a cost less than a first-class holiday trip from Auckland to the beautiful lakes of Western Otago. Hundreds of men fly over from London to Paris for an evening at the Opera House or some other lure, and return next morning in time for opening their mail at business offices. Women, with a passion for luxurious shopping and with ample means of pleasing their vanity, think nothing of flying from the wiles of .New Bond Street to the magnetic charms of the Rue de la Paix. As for holidays on air-tours, the scope for delight in the Northern Hemisphere is beyond the dreams of this nation of ground larks. And the cost of operating liners has become a marvel. It is only a penny or two more for each ton-mile than the Auckland City Council’s cost for each bus-mile. Some day perhaps, New Zealanders will cease from imitating the kiwi and will follow the way of the eagle. By that time an Imperial flying-boat will bring passengers from Melbourne to Auckland in -0 hours, to join here a long-range airship for a trip to Panama.