DECEMBER 5,

FLIGHT.

1935.

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