Via Catapult

The North German Lloyd liner Europe. hove-to with engines idling 600 mi. off -Cape Breton one morning last week. Passengers lined the rail, crowded about a roped enclosure on the sundeck to watch a sturdy monoplane mounted on a sort of sled and turntable between the two smokestacks. Pilot Joachim Blankenburg waved a signal from the cockpit, a seaman on deck threw a lever and the sled shot to the edge of the deck, flinging the seaplane out over the water at 80 m. p. h. The plane rose rapidly, circled the Euro pa in salute, vanished into the west with mail for the U. S. and Canada.

This procedure was not extraordinary. Mail planes have been catapulted from the Europa and Bremen and from the French Line's lie de France many a time. But never had it been attempted so far from New York. Mail planes heretofore have left ships off Cape Cod, 600 or 700 mi. from port. The Europa was 1.275 mi. out of New York. Six hours after leaving the steamer the seaplane alighted at Sydney, Cape Breton Island, discharged its Canadian mail, refuelled. Then it flew all night down the coast to Bridgeport. Conn., fuelled again, taxied up to the Europa's Brooklyn pier early in the morning, nearly 28 hr. ahead of the liner. It was the first time that transatlantic mail had beaten its steamer into port by a full day. Ordinarily the margin is about 18 hr. North German Lloyd officials declared the long distance experiment would be repeated whenever weather permits. On eastward voyages the plane leaves the steamer 300 or 400 mi. out of Southampton, flies ahead to Southampton. Rotterdam, Cologne. Flights are attempted only between late April and October and then only when weather is good (about 90% of the time). If storms or fog occur after the takeoff, the master of the liner may order the pilot back by radio. That was done once, last autumn.

Each plane can carry 440 Ib. of mail, but capacity loads are rare. For the special service, letters should be addressed:

Via S. S. , Via Catapult, with 50

pfennigs (10^) extra postage.

The French Line's experiments began in 1928, a year before the North German Lloyd's. An amphibian would leave the He de France about 400 mi. from New York; on eastward voyages, off the Scilly Islands to land on Le Bourget. For sake of economy no flights were made this season.

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