FLYING Issued by Senior Service Cigarettes Extracts from the album

No. 1: DE HAVILLAND 86 This very successful and widely used type combines great safety with economy of operation. With four 200 h.p. engines the De Havilland 86 carries 16 passengers and has a cruising speed of 145 m.p.h. A notable feature of this type is the tapered wings, which make for speed and simplicity of construction. The machine in the photograph belongs to Qantas Empire Airways, of Australia, which connects with the Empire Service of Imperial Airways at Singapore.

No. 2: FLY-BY-NIGHT Air travel by night, a future necessity, has a charm of its own. The weather is generally more stable and the lighted towns below give an entirely novel scenic effect. Problems of pilotage are greater, but these are rapidly being overcome and the scope of services is increasing, as indeed it must in order to achieve the time-saving in night travel which aircraft should show over railways. The picture shows a Handley Page H.P. 42 about to leave Croydon for Paris.

No. 4: THE INTERCONTINENTAL The De Havilland Albatross, with four 500 h.p. Gypsyking engines, was built for transatlantic experiments to compare the relative merits of land 'planes and flying boats for this work. It is made of wood by a special new method which gives a perfectly smooth surface impervious to damage by water and atmospheric conditions. The top speed is unpublished but the machine cruises at more than 200 m.p.h. for a range of 4,000 miles.

No. 8: AERIAL SIGNAL BOX The Control Tower at Croydon handles daily over 60 air liners operating on scheduled services. All are given frequent weather reports and the position of other air liners on their route, the position of each being flagged on a map in the control tower. In bad visibility air liners are given their position by means of wireless, and a rigid system of control is enforced in order to eliminate the risk of collision.

No. 9: PARLIAMENTARY VISIT This photograph shows a Short Calcutta Flying Boat of Imperial Airways, moored on the Thames off the Houses of Parliament, with Big Ben in the background. This type, now superseded, did excellent service in the Mediterranean, and this alighting on the Thames was made for the purpose of demonstrating to Members of Parliament the progress of, and equipment available to, Britain's principal air operating Company, to whom they had entrusted the blazing of the air trails of Empire.

No. 13: A VETERAN AIR LINER The Armstrong Siddeley Argosy with three 400 h.p. Siddeley Jaguars went into service with Imperial Airways in 1926, and the fleet carried many thousands of passengers in safety before being superseded. The routine check-over which is here seen in progress is now carried out with rather more up-to-date equipment than ladders in the picture, but the care taken remains the same and accounts for the extra-ordinarily safe record of Imperial Airways.

No. 14: CANOPUS Canopus, here shown taking off from the Medway, was the first of the luxuriously fitted Empire Flying Boats built by Short Brothers, a similar type to which has flown the Atlantic. Canopus has four Bristol Pegasus engines, giving a top speed of about 200 m.p.h., and unlike older types these machines have a smooth metal skin which bears some of the strain imposed in flight.

No. 17: MIDGET AND GIANT The smallest aeroplane to compete in the 1937 King's Cup Race, the TK.4 has a speed of 240 m.p.h. It was designed and built by students of the De Havilland Aeronautical Technical School, and is here seen standing beneath the giant Albatross. Unlike most small aircraft, it was designed to withdraw its landing wheels when in flight. The recesses for the wheels can be more clearly seen in the larger machine, which is similarly equipped.

No. 25: THE SHORT CALCUTTA The decision to operate the Empire Air Mail Scheme with flying boats was the result of a long experience with the Short Calcutta Flying Boat, here seen over the coast of Cornwall. Imperial Airways used this type on the Mediterranean section of the Empire routes for many years, and thereby gained experience which is now making a success of operations with the new Empire class of flying boats also built by Short Bros.

No. 32: PICK-A-BACK AIRCRAFT The Mayo Composite Aircraft is an attempt to solve the problem of launching heavily laden aircraft. It consists of two machines, a float seaplane which carries the load, and a flying boat which acts as "porter". The device operates as a single machine up to about 6,000 feet, when the two machines are disconnected and the seaplane continues its flight independently. The machine was designed for Major R.H. Mayo, and has been built by Short Bros. at Rochester.

No. 37: A FAITHFUL SERVANT In 1930 a Handley Page H.P. 42 was introduced by Imperial Airways and eight of them went into service on various routes. One was accidentally burnt in a hangar in India, but the rest, known as "The Seven Sisters", have now averaged over a million miles each, and have carried about 100,000 passengers without injuring one. Their normal 100 m.p.h. is no longer adequate, but the standard in quiet and comfort which they set six years ago is still considered high.

No. 44: THE EMPIRE COURIER The Short Empire flying boat, with a top speed of 200 m.p.h., effectively solves the problem of modern air transport for the Empire. From 1938 all first-class mails to Africa and Australia will go by these craft at normal home postal rates. The African section is already working, and also a partial service to Karachi. Flying Boats of this type made, during 1937, ten uneventful crossings of the North Atlantic.

No. 45: ALL ABOARD FOR THE EMPIRE The Short Empire Flying Boat Centaurus of Imperial Airways, shown here, is about to start on the first flying-boat service from Southampton to Alexandria. This was on January 16th, 1937. In June the services between Southampton and Alexandria were increased to five a week in each direction, when the east coast route from Alexandria to South Africa (Durban) was inaugurated with the new Empire flying boats.

No. 47: COMFORT IN THE AIR In the 18-ton 200 m.p.h. Empire flying boats, Imperial Airways have excelled themselves in the provision of passenger accommodation. Comfortable sleeping berths, smoking cabin and promenade deck are some of the features which make these great flying boats the most luxurious of air liners. When looking at this photograph, which shows the interior of the promenade saloon, it is hard to realise that these happily engrossed people are several thousand feet above the earth.