TRIAL FLIGHTS ENDED

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 356, 10 February 1937, Page 6

TRIAL FLIGHTS ENDED

FLYING BOATS TO ALEXANDRIA. Developing The Empire Airmail Service. Press Association—Copyright. Rugby, February 8. i The Empire class Imperial Airways • flying-boats Canopus, Centaurus, j Cassioceia and Castor, and two longi range boats, Caledonia and Cambria, have all made trial flights from Hythe to Alexandria, via Marseilles, Brindisi and Athens. On the last of these test flights passengers were carried. At present the flying-boats go only as far as Alexandria, where passengers for the south tranship to land ’planes for Cape Town, and those for the Jlast proceed by land ’planes bound for India and Australia. During the current year a new organisation will gradually be built up until the flying-boats will go right through to their overseas Empire terimini. The boats have a top speed of just under 200 miles an hour and carry 24 passengers. When the service is in full operation the England-Sydney journey will take just over a week and India will be reached in a little over three days. When the whole scheme is fully developed it is intended that letters to any Empire destination along the route will be carried for lid a half-ounce.