WONDER AIR LINER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 July 1939, Page 7

WONDER AIR LINER

♦ GREAT BRITAIN’S BIGGEST MACHINE TRANSATLANTIC PASSENGER SERVICE. SOME INTERESTING DETAILS. " 1 » Golden Hind, the world’s most wonderful air liner, is now undergoing vigorous trials in England, where she has been made by Messrs Short Brothers for Imperial Airways. Together with two sister air-liners, she will be used for the regular North Atlantic service, first for mails and later for passengers. This aircraft, if not quite the largest in the world, is certainly the most advanced in design, and her all-round performance will probably prove superior to anything that has taken the air as yet. Her British designers have high hopes, and experts everywhere are looking forward to the result of her trials, which should start a few days after launching. It is anticipated that she will take about 16 hours to fly more than 3000 miles with 30 passengers without refuelling.' On the Ireland-Newfound-land run she is expected to take less than 16 hours against a 40-mile-an-hour headwind, or probably about ten and a half hours in a dead calm. This is achieved with four engines totalling 5000 horse-power, which will give the Golden Hind a cruising speed of 180 miles an hour and a top speed of well over 200 miles per hour.

Passengers will be accommodated in the centre of the hull, which forms a large hall 25 feet long, 12 feet wide and 19 feet high. To the front of this is a mail compartment, above which and on the second floor are the crew’s quarters, with comfortable tables, chairs and even bunks.

By contrast with the original 100-ton Golden Hind—the ship in which Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world 350 years ago—Britain’s new sky giant weighs about 17£ tons, without fuel or crew. She is built almost entirely of aluminium and aluminium alloys. Here are figures which give some impression of the size of this ship, which has taken 12 months of continuous work to complete:—The overall length is 101 feet, and the wing span is 134 feet; the width of the two wings is 25 feet at their maximum, and they are thick enough at their base for a 12-year-old boy to walk through; the aircraft would be able to carry up to 160 people on an ordinary "short stage” flight, of about 450 miles. The Golden Hind is now undergoing her makers’ trials, after which there are Air Ministry trials and acceptance trials to be undergone before the maiden voyage, which it is hoped will lake place early in the autumn.