"ft 4. "Shu A^w."
British Plan Air Service to V. SAn Spring
3 Flying Boats
Available If Not
Taken by Army
Meanwhile, Empire Runs
80% of Its Routes, Busi-
ness Booms Despite War
By Ansel E. Talbert
Qreat Britain, striving to rule the
skies as well as the waves in the
war against Germany, Is worrying
about the decline of her commer-
cial aviation. War or no war, she
Is planning to become active again
soon In air operations across the
North Atlantic, and her allies, the
French, have similar intentions.
Barring an alarming turn for the
worse In Allied fortunes. British
pilots will attempt to open an air
line between the British Isles. Can-
ada and the United States as soon
as the ice cakes now choking New-
foundland harbors and lakes melt.
They plan to use three huge flying
boats almost the size of Pan-Ameri-
can Boeing clippers, completed Just
before the war began. The French
are test-flying their six-engined
Latecoere air-liner, for use soon in
trans-Atlantic flying.
Civilians Dissatisfied
The plans for British and French
trans-Atlantic air efforts this spring
had their origin in an undercover
but hard-fought struggle Inside
aeronautical circles of both nations
—which Is still in progress. Appar-
ently only the need for presenting
a united front to the enemy has
kept civilian groups from asking
publicly: "What good will it do to
win the war if in the process we
scrap what might become the most
important branch of our trade struc-
tures—civil aviation?*'
The civilian groups seem to have
good reason for alarm. Production
of commercial planes of any size
has ceased in both Britain and
France. And in England not only
have most aircraft of the empire
been taken over by the Royal Air
Force, but those which were in pro-
duction when the war began were
shoved aside, unfinished, to gather
dust. \
Construction on the micT-wlng.
high-altitude land planes with
supercharged cabins which WW
Short Brothers factory was buildinff
for possible commercial operations
across the Atlantic in 1941, for
example, has been discontinued "In-
definitely" while the engineers and
mechanics shifted over to bomber
building.
Army May Requisition Craft
Within the last week the writer
received word from an authoritative
source In England that there was
considerable agitation by military
men for the taking over of the three
new trans-Atlantic flying boats-
Britain's last hope in the air com-
mercially for many months. The
performance of the flying boats is
said by these men to be so satis-
factory that they should not' be
"wasted" In civilian use, but should
be put on special duty with the
Royal Air Force's coastal command.
The flying boats arc all of the so-
called "O" class, weighing 73.000
pounds—the largest ever produced
by the British aviation Industry.
Named the Golden Hind, the
Oolden Fleece and the Golden Horn,
they were supposed to supply the
British answer to the American clip-
tahmilH the Air Ministry rcqul-
BRITISB ANSWER TO AMERICAN CLIPPERS-
flylng boat of the "G* e/a«. built
1 sXtrrior tmtl interior of thv Golden
in England for trcnt-Atlantic service
Hind, 36 ft -ton
course prevent the start of trans-
Atlantic service In the spring and
probably would precipitate an open
battle over air policy in Parliament
and press.
Not all of Britain's civil aircraft
have been taken over for military
duty. At present the country is op-
erating 80 per cent of her air serv-
ices, including two round trips a
week to Australia from the British
Isles, four to India, two to Africa
and the daily land plane service to
and from Paris in conjunction with
air Prance.
Long Waiting Lists
Business is booming on the Brit-
ish routes, with large waiting lists
the rule. And although the "all up"
mail plan—under which all flrst-
class mail was to be carried event-
ually by air, no matter how it was
marked by the sender—has been
abandoned, the British are carrying
several times as much surcharged
a!r mail as th*y did before that plan
vns ined.
But there Is a constant realiza-
tion by both British air-line pilots
and operations men that there will
be no planes to replace any lost In
accidents. Recently, British Over-
seas Airways—the new corporation
which is a combination of both Im-
perial Airways and British Airways,
Ltd.—has lost several of Its Ameri-
can-built Lockheed transports, with
no way of replacing them. No flying
boat has been sent to take the place
of the Cavalier, lost a year ago on
a flight over its New York-Bermuda
run.
Because most of Britain's air
routes over the empire were estab-
lished with the policy of carrying
large numbers of passengers and
mail in four-engined airplanes, what
is worrying the British aviation men
most is tiie matter of future pro-
curement—If the subordination of
civil flying to military aviation con-
tinues. Even if they did swallow
their pride and come to the United
States on an aerial shopping tour,
their leaders are pointing out pri-
vately, where would the aircraft
needed come from? Planes of the
size and range required, it is being
noted, are not generally found ready
for Immediate cash sale.
Hoping for the Best
However, those most concerned
about British civil flying are hoping
far the best on the unsolved prob-
lem of future sources of supply and
concentrating on getting ready to
fly the Atlantic in a few months. It
would be of great political value,
they believe, to have British planes
shuttling into the marine base at
LaGuardia Field once or twice a
week. They are hopeful that be-
tween now and spring no official of
the Air Ministry will pick up a tele-
phone and say casually. "Hold the
Golden Hind for military duty."
Meanwhile, they are trying to In-
crease thejr personnel, but even
there difficulties are being encoun-
tered. During the last fortnight the
British Overseas Corporation adver-
tised for twenty radio operators—
I and got only one or two applicants rf