AIR ROUTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 February 1920, Page 5

AIR ROUTES.

linking the empire. MILITARY AND CIVIL PLANS. By Telejraph.—Press Assn.—-Copyright. London, Fob. 2. General Sir F. H". Sykes (Director of Civilian Flying) delivered a lecture on Imperial air routes to the Geographical Society before a large gathering, including' the Prince of Wales and official representatives of the Dominions. Heneral Sykes defined the routes as: — Egypt to IndiaCairo to the Cape. India to Australia. England to Egypt. England to Canada. England to the West Indies, via the Azores.

General Sykes emphasised the necessity of keeping the first line fighting Air Force always on a war footing. Military aviation, however, was circumscribed on the ground of finance, while civil aviation must never cease to expand. Each should co-operate, one for imperial defence, the other as an instrument for the development of Imperial trade, which could be used if necessary as a great aerial reserve. General Sykes hoped that before long the air forces of the Empire would be welded into one force, co-ordinated by the Imperial Air Staff. He of opinion that the principles of service and civil aviation experiments applied equally to the Dominions and tli" Mother Country, and if the Empire air power, both service and civil, was developed and co-ordinated, our air supremacy might in future be more valuable in assisting to maintain the world's peace than our sea supremacy had been in the past.

NEW ZEALAND BY SEAPLANE. Examining the route?., he said the Egypt to India, route held out many advantages owing to the great saving in time which wan possible compared with th« sea voyage. Similarly the routes Cairo to Baghdad and South Africa offered potentialities which were impossible to assess. The long seaboard of the two islands of New Zealand seemed ehosen by nature for seaplanes. The practicability of Malta as an intermediate landing ground was now being considered.

General Sykes dwelt on the necessity of post office co-operation. Air mails ivere the real foundation of the whole system on which Imperial routes must be based. In order to compete successfully in commerce, aircraft must aim at completing a journey in one-third the time taken by other transport.. General Sykes added that, excluding Anglo-Australian flights, the machines of the principal firms between May 1 and December 31 of last year flew 503,000 miles and carried 64,000 passengers with only 10 accidents involving five deaths. FLEETS FOR THE DOMINIONS.

He expressed the opinion that the future air policy of the component parts of the Empire would be able to keep in close touch with England in matters of common policy. Each of the Dominions should have a small service and a large civil air fleet to meet its own strategic needs and Empire organisation, and should be able to concentrate quickly for its assistance. The president, Sir Frances Ynunghusband, said that the 'Prince of Wales was doing Empire work of the greatest importance. He had been successfully endeavoring to put various parts of the Empire on good terms with each other. He had made himself a very precious Empire asset. Ho hoped the Prince would learn from the lecture something as to how he might in future possibly go to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other parts of the Empire to open Parliaments and to India to open Durbars.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.