Transatlantica (Cont'd)

To the pimento sands and mint-jelly sea of Bermuda last week air tourists flew for the first time as Pan American and Imperial Airways simultanteously began passenger service from Port Washington, L.I. with one plane apiece each way per week./- This week Imperial was scheduled to send a flying boat on first test hops all the way across the Atlantic between the new airbases at Botwood, Newfoundland and Foynes, Ireland (TIME, Nov. 30; March 1).

An association similar to that of Pan American and Imperial but as unstable as an alliance between cat and dog was formed last week between Germany's Lufthansa and Air France. These two national airlines agreed to cooperate in test flights across the Atlantic, share each other's bases at each end. The agreement gives Germany rights at Dakar, Senegal, for South Atlantic flights, and at Hanoi. French Indo-China, for Far Eastern flying. France won the right to use Germany's catapult ships in the Atlantic. Co-operation was necessary because France lacks planes, Germany lacks capital, and both lack rights to land in the Azores, Bermuda, Canada or the U. S.

Last week Air France and the French Line joined in creating a new concern called Companie Air France-Transatlantique. It announced that the lumbering old flying boat Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris, which capsized in Pensacola Bay 18 months ago after flying up from South America, had been rebuilt, would soon start test flights across the North Atlantic. Lufthansa last week announced that it would start test flights to the U. S. in the first week of July with "the two biggest two-float hydroplanes ever constructed." These trim monoplanes, called Nordmeer and Nordwind, are powered by four Diesel engines apiece, have a cruising speed of 155 m.p.h. Designed for mail only, they will be catapulted by German ships at each end as were the two Lufthansa planes which test-flew the Atlantic last summer (TIME, Sept. 21). Last week the U. S. gave Lufthansa permission to make more tests. Neither Lufthansa nor Air France has permission to inaugurate commercial service.

/- Round-trip fare: $180. Both planes are four-motored flying boats with similar speed and weight, but the Pan American Bermuda Clipper carries 28 passengers to the Imperial Cavalier's 16. The run takes 5 1/2 hr. The Clipper leaves Long Island every Thursday, returns Sunday. The Cavalier leaves Long Island Saturday, returns Wednesday. Airmail is carried from Bermuda in the Cavalier. No airmail can be carried to Bermuda because the U. S. Post Office has not awarded a contract.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.