AIR LINES TO LINK US WITH THE WORLD

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 30, 6 January 1939, Page 7

AIR LINES TO LINK US WITH THE WORLD

By

Trevor

Lane

NE of the most interesting aspects of my visit to England was the intimate glimpse which I had of preparations for the encirclement of the globe by British air-lines. Imperial Airways and its associate companies already operate routes totalling nearly 30,000 miles, but when, in the near future, the Tasman and the Atlantic services become realities, there will be the inspiring spectacle of a continuous route from Bermuda, through New York and ‘Montreal, England and Australia to Auck-land-18,000 miles in one route alone! The Imperial flying-boats, sisters of the "Centaurus," will be flying direct from Southampton to Sydney very soon and there are strong hopes, I am told, that arrangements for the Tasman service will be completed within the next few months. But already Imperial Airways is considering the . next . step-linking NewZealand with the U.S.A. and Canada direct and thus completing the encirclement of the globe with regular British air services. . _ These great trans-ocean services have been made possible as much by the development of radio as by purely aeronautical advances. Clockwork Services y WAS. privileged to learn at first hand the latest advances.in the radia equipment which will make clockwork Tasman and Pacific services 4 matter of course. Long-range tests by the Imperial Airways flying-boats,- culminating in the Atlantic flights and the New Zealand flight of "Centaurus" have brought a thorough kagwiedge of the problems of air radio. From préliminary flights ‘it was ‘established that shortwaves suitable for the first thousand miles had t6 be replaced by shorter wavelengths for. the second thousand. That is just one technical instance. The Imperial Airways research experts can quote you dozens which they have overcome or which they are dealing with now. All that technical work finds its concrete

expression in the Marconi equipment which goes into the Imperial flying-boats. Busy Operater TN the vast network of the Empire’s air routes there is no busier man than the wireless operator, tucked away in his small eabin thousands of feet in the air with his intricate apparatus all round him. From the time the flying-boats surf their way across Southampton water until they come down in New Zealand he will be one of the most important men on the job. He signais at regular interyals the position of the aircraft, its speed and height and the weather conditions. It is all these progress reports, received at ground stations, which enable an accurate check to be kept on the great fleet of air-liners scattered all along the routes. On the Tasman, the Pacifie and the Atlantic, ships at sea will also be used as occasion demands to keep constant radio touch with the flying-boats. The permanent wireless ground organisation must be, and is, very efficient to afford adequate co-operation with the trans-ocean fiyers, and an extensive network .of aeronautical radio stations has been built up to provide the navigation facilities and control organisation. METEOROLOGICAL stations on the ground keep the captain fully informed on the latest developments in weather, and his radio operator can cheek his position in little over a minute at any time. Passengers, too, over the Tasman will be able to get through urgent messages to any part of the world. They will merely hand in an "airradio" to the flying-boat’s wireless operator and he will transmit it to the nearest ground station to link up with the regular telegraph, cable and radio systems. Aircraft passengers of the future may have at their disposal wireless telephony as a routine service by which telephone calls can be made in the same way as from, say, the Queen Mary. That is only one of the many aspects of the plentiful scope for future development in air radio.