OCEAN AIRWAYS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1943, Page 3

OCEAN AIRWAYS

FIVE=DAY SERVICE FEASIBLE BETWEEN SYDNEY & LONDON ACCORDING TO MR. P. G. TAYLOR. (Special Australian Correspondent.)SYDNEY, May 6. The development of overseas air communications is being regarded as a matter of increasing importance by Australians. Mr P. G. Taylor will shortly visit the United States in this connection. He has just recently returned from America and Britain. It is understood that among other activities, he advocated the development of a second air route across the Pacific. For some time, Mr Taylor was engaged in ferrying aircraft across the Pacific and last year flew the Lieuten-ant-Governor of the Netherlands East Indies, Dr. Van Mook, and later General Van Oyen, Commander of the the Netherlands East Indies Air Force, to the United States. With the late Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. Mr Taylor made the first west to east crossing of the Pacific in 1934 and in 1939 was the leader in the first air crossing of the Indian Ocean.

Mr Taylor believes that a five-day airmail service between Sydney and London is feasible by the Indian Ocean route today. “In my view,” said Mr Taylor, “air communication between Australia and Britain is important enough for the allotment of the few machines which would be necessary to provide the service. Though not so suitable as a transport type, four-engined bombers converted to mail transports would provide an ef- ' fective service. Presumably Britain would supply the aircraft, which would need to be of the most modern type. “A good deal has been said of American aims toward domination of postwar air transportation. The facts are .that the United States alone energetically developed bases and provided air communication and transport which form an essential part of the United Nations’ war operations. Though individual Australians pioneered the transpacific route, we have to thank the United States for its national initiative and the action which followed these flights with an organised route, without which Australia would be in a very different position today. There seems reason to hope, however, that with the active and Pacific-conscious service administration which now exists, Australians may be able to contribute to the great transpacific air communications system, on which this country is completely dependent for its existence today.”