EXPANSION ALOFT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 990, 5 June 1930, Page 11

EXPANSION ALOFT

BRITAIN OPENING UP NEW AIR ROUTE'S EXPERIMENTS WITH RIOO British Official Wireless RUGBY. Tuesday. The Secretary of State for Air. Lord Thomson, made a statement in the House of Lords today about civil aviation. He said that in ’ Britain they could not develop civil aviation quite to the same extent as larger countries with less good communications. On the other hand Britain had a far-flung Empire which she could only reach by crossing other people's territory, and to do that she had been compelled to enter into a variety of agreements with the Governments of the other countries. There were differences in the various countries as to the interpretation of “freedom of the air’’ as defined by the international convention. However, Britain had not experienced the least difficulty in reaching agreements with those countries over which the air route to India passed. Italy took a more restricted interpretation of the freedom of the air. PASSING OVER ITALY The difficulty of reaching a satisfactory arangement with Italy was due to the fact that no basis of reciprocity could be found because Britain had nothing to give Italy in return for the privileges she enjoyed on Italian territory. The position was not at all bad. The mid-European, or Balkan, air route to India w-as functioning with remarkable success and punctuality. The British Empire now’ had 23,350 miles of air routes in regular operation. As a people the British were rather apt to decry their own achievements, but they had the second largest mileage of air routes in the world—second only to that of the United States. Britain’s services were served by the finest machines and certainly many of the best pilots in the world. SEEK BRITISH MACHINES It was a feature of Continental air travel that passengers always tried to fly in British machines whenever there was a choice. That wa? a tribute to Britain’s ground organisation, her pilots and the efforts takeu to avoid risks arising from faulty structure. Developments of air services now being arranged were: An extension of the India service to Australia which it was hoped to have in operation by the end of next year, and a service through Africa from Cairo to Capetown, w’hich would be completed as far as the Great Lakes, Central Africa, at the end of this year and to Capetown by the spring of 1931.

AIRSHIP EXPERIMENTS 1 Referring to airships. Lord Thomson reminded the House that the building of RIOO and RlOl was an experiment. The final stages of that experiment wrould be made at the end of this month by a flight to Canada. There was going to be no risk, while he was in charge, of anything being rushed so that lives might be lost through lack of foresight. Lord Thomson paid a tribute to the magnificent work done by the airship men who had sacrificed promotion and other advantages in order to undertake these great experiments. People asked why the Graf Zeppelin could go round and round the w’orld while Britain’s two airships remained In their sheds. The reason was that the Germans had 30 years’ experience behind them. However, with all their excellence, Zeppelins could not be compared with RIOO and RlOl. Despite many setbacks and some disappointments his faith in them w’as absolutely undimmed, and he was sure the people of Britain would be right in continuing these experiments on the basis of research alone.