Fiji Airways.

Two Genairco Seaplanes To Go To Suva.

FIJI AIRWAYS LTD. should be func tioning early in 1933. It will inaugu rate and develop aerial transport ser vices in the group, and will also encour age and organise the tourist traffic.

The company will commence opera tions with three small machines —a sea plane which it will take over from Cap tain Fenton, and two new Genairco sea planes, which have been built in Sydney, and which will be shipped to Suva on January 5.

One of these machines has just been tested from its floats in Sydney Har bour. Loaded with 4½ hours’ petrol, a pilot and three passengers, it was the first seaplane to fly under Sydney Har bour Bridge, and it behaved excellently.

The new company is also having built, tor despatch next month to Fiji, a spe cial speed-boat, 30 feet long and 8½ feet beam, fitted with a 240 h.p. Puma en gine, which will drive the boat at a speed of 30 knots. The boat will carry 10 passengers in specially designed, air cushioned seats, and it will have fittings installed for the comfort of passengers such as refrigeration. The boat will be available, when required, to supplement the air services: but probably it will be used mostly for sight-seeing trips by tourists, of whom large numbers pass through Suva on the mail-liners.

An interesting feature of the boat is the engine-starter system. The usual electric-starter will operate on a 20 h.p. petrol-engine; and the latter, in its turn, will start the 240 h.p. Puma, to which it is connected through a clutch. If any thing should go wrong with the Puma, or it is not needed, the 20 h.p. engine can be connected with the propellor, and it will take the boat along at six miles per hour.

A steel hangar for the seaplanes is being fabricated in Sydney and will be erected shortly on the waterfront at Suva.

Mr. J. G. Beohm, a well-known motor and aeronautical engineer, will leave Sydney on January 5 with the plant, which is described as “the best that money can buy.”

Mr. Alan S. Cross, organiser and man aging director of the new company, who has been in Australia attending to all these details of preliminary organisa tion, sailed again for Suva on December 17. He and Captain Fenton are to be the pilots of the new seaplanes.

It is a most interesting development and everyone who believes that aviation will play a big part in the future of the Pacific will wish Fiji Airways, Ltd. the best of luck.