DECEMBER 5,

1935.

FLIGHT.

595

COMMERCIAL /\V/AT/ON
AIRLINES AIRPORTS

IN MINIATURE : One of the many interesting exhibits at the Empire Airway Exhibition, which will be opened to-day, is this model of the Short-Mayo composite aeroplane. Details of the exhibits were given in last week's issue of Flight.

THE WEEK AT CROYDON

A Question of Necessity : The Dublin Service : Abyssinian Ambulance : Infant Extradition : A Booking Anomaly

HERE was not much news of the big air companies last week, and from most of them there was only a tale of business as usual despite the bad weather. On Sunday, December 1, I noticed that K.L.M. ran a duplicate inward service, consisting of a full F.22 and a full F.12, with a total of about thirty-six passengers. Wrightways tell me they have now used a P.B. automatic pilot on one of their machines for 150 hours with excellent results, and no adjustments to the device have been necessary. Mr. Leo Crilly, of Crilly Airways, has just completed negotiations for the purchase of four^Fokker F.12 machines from K.L.M. The first, painted in his colours of silver and blue, is to be delivered on December 20, and the rest shortly afterwards. They will be used on the LondonLisbon line mentioned elsewhere. Mr. Crilly, a business man and unused to perverse unreasonableness, has been both annoyed and amused by the mistakenly patriotic attitude of some people who have thrown back their ears and brayed at him tor not " buying British." He has made superhuman efforts to do so, but British manufacturers of the types he needs are apparently too busy to deliver for a long time. What he is doing, he says, is to open up a British air line between England and her historic ally Portugal before someone else steps in and does it, and, in consequence, he does not expect to be brayed at. What would be the personal attitude of these folk, he enquires, if they were asked to wait nine months for deliven* of a British car, but could obtain a reasonably good

foreign one straight away? Would thpy lose their jobs because they lived too far from their work to walk ? As reported in last week's issue of Flight and elsewhere in this issue, Olley Air Service's plans arc now complete for the Dublin link of a service between Liverpool, the Isle of Man, Belfast, Dublin and Bristol. Unlike many firms, Olley is not short of aircraft and will be able to commence the service with his present fleet. Usually, I understand, the Bristol-London link will be made by fast connecting trains, and this seems to be an interesting example of intelligent transport co-ordination. The train with which the service will connect takes two hours and lunch is served on boatd. Olley s, by the way, had an ambulance case last Saturday from a boat at Marseilles (it had come from India) to Croydon. The pilot was " S a m m y " Morton, and the passenger was Mr. K. Ladds, who had with him his wife and four-months-old baby. There is more news concerning ambulance air work. In the Croydon hangars of Rollasons is a Dragon which is being completely rebuilt and, when ready, will be dazzling white with silver wings. On the fuselage and top wing will be large red crosses, and the Ethiopian flag will also be painted on the fuselage. Special drinking water tanks will be fitted and extra fuel lanks, too, together with all the other necesMti<-> '>[ a (lying ambulance. The machine has been purchased by the Ethiopian Red Cross Society through the League of Nations' Red Cross Society, and when it is flown out for delivery to Addis Ababa by Fit. Lt. Hayler, Air Commodore Fellowes will