AIR SERVICE FOR FIJI.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 July 1921, Page 9

AIR SERVICE FOR FIJI.

EXPERIMENTS TO BE MADE; SERVICE AMONG ISLANDS, A request from the Fiji Government that experiments should be carried out among the islands of the Fiji Group with a view’to ascertaining the suitability of an aerial mail service, has been received by Mr. Leo A. Walsh, of the New Zealand Flying School, who will leave by the Tofua in company with Captain A. C. Upham, D.F.U., a stall pilot from the Flying School. Mr. Walsh and Captain Upham will take with them a new machine, “the Supermarine Four-seater Channel Type Flying Boat,’ which lias made flights recently over the Waifcemata. The hull of the now flying boat is 30ft. long, built of mahogany, cedar, and rock elm, with three upholstered cockpits. The engine, a 160 h.p. Beardmore. drives a fourbladed propeller at the rear of the planes, 'the fact that the engine i« situated behind both pilot and passengers ensures for them a minimum of the noise and -fumes that are so unpleasant in some types of machines. The folding wings of the flying boat are con structed of silver spruce, and are of especial strength. With a pilot and three passengers or a substantial load of 4801 b, the machine can cruise for three and three-quarter hours at full power without refilling her fuel tanks, her speed in the air being from 46 to 70 knots.

Captain Upham will pilot the machine on the test.-\ that have been arranged, and when Mr. Walsh has become fully convinced of the possibilities of the suggested service he will report to the Fiji Government.