INTERNATIONAL AERO EXHIBITION.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3525, 12 July 1920, Page 5

INTERNATIONAL AERO EXHIBITION.

.VIARvELLOUs ADVANCE OF _ FLYING. "

Received Noon

LONDON, July 11

Lord Londonderry, in opening the International Aero Exhibition, referred to the recent alarmist e.xa,gg<=.-r3 ated statements anent air developments by other nations, especially Germany. He added that Germany at present had forfy-nine undertakings licensed to participate in air traffic, which was represented by nineteen transport conipaniea, of which only two were actually working", and thirty factories, four of which _wcl-e engaged in research work and two in engine designing. The Control Commission had sanctioned a few commercial machines of no military value for the purpose of resumption of air frame in Germany on a small scale.

General Sykes, Controller-General of civil aviation, alluded to the pres» ence of so many Dominions representatives as proving the universal interest aroused by aviation He ex.pressed satisfaction with the eimibits, which included the most modem senplanes, fiying-boats, and am'phibiarxs_ He said it. was essential that we, in :1 soagirf; Empire, should develop these types ‘of aircraft. Since 261-,.‘2 Auggust, 1919. when int-efnntionnl fiying was first permitted, air services had been esta'blished between Lond<:n‘ and Paris, London and Amsferdam, while London and Brussels wpuid shortly be inaugurated. He mentioned it. as 21. remarkable fact that ,f.hroug3lou‘; the winter months there were only fen days when fhe London Paris service was interrupted. Genera] Sykes gave the following striking figures of the numbers of flights carl"u=d out the

first year of civil aviation, 38,953; approximate mileage flown 7’,3-403200; number of passengers Carried, seventy thousand, with only one fatality; weight of goods transported 116.498 pounds; value -of imports and exports transported airwise £200,000. .