HUGE FLYING-BOAT.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 369, 25 February 1937, Page 6

HUGE FLYING-BOAT.

To Carry Between 80 and 100 Passengers. London, February 7. A flying boat 250 feet long—nearly as big as a channel steamer—is under construction at the Short Brothers flying-boat works at Rochester, Kent. Between 80 and 100 passengers will be carried. By reducing the passenger load and increasing the fuel supply the boat could fly half-way round the world without refuelling. Its wing span will be nearly a hundred yards.

AfZer all the preliminary tests have been gone through, boats of this type Will supersede the Empire type flying boats now going into service with Imperial Airways. And with probable engine development in this period the boats will cruise at 250 miles an hour.

Within two years the average speed of the standard air liner will be more than three hundred miles an hour. And that speed will be attained ■with no more horsepower than the present machines need —and less fuel will be used. These new aircraft will be monoplanes, and passengers and pilots will sit in. the wing. The fuselage—where passengers and freight are usually accommodated now—will be made as small as possible. The new giant fly- ; ing boats will be used for the new ocean routes over the North and South Atlantic and the Pacific. These boats will contain ballrooms, staterooms, even bathrooms, for passenger#