AIR MAILS SOON

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 579, 4 February 1929, Page 1

AIR MAILS SOON

CONFERENCE DELEGATES’ OPINIONS

(Special to THE Sl*-') BLENHEIM, Saturday. That a new era has dawned in the history of transport and that every town in the Dominion will soon have to consider providing landing grounds, is the opinion of Mr. H. P. Dix, President of the Marlborough Aero Club, who has just returned from the International Aeronautic Conference at Washington. He predicts an air mail service within a few years. Aviation in the United States is of mushroom growth. W here a hangar and a landing field sufficed a little time ago there has now developed hugh air ports replete with engineering shops, administrative buildings, and range after range of hangars. The fields were all elaborately lighted for night fiying. and the routes from one city to another were pricked out with great beacon towers. It is the commercial side that has developed most. Mail planes can carry very profitable loads. Night living and landing has become safe through beacons and searchlights developed to help mail pilots. Dayton City gave the Government 2,000 acres for laboratories, testing grounds and air ports. Here at the Wright airport almost every machine made was under observation and test. Tlie Ford all-metal tri-motor machine, similar to that being used by Commander Byrd in the Antacctir, was an outstanding machine and wai becoming very popular.