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Background: The first of Canadian Pacific's fleet of Britannias - Britannia 314 turbo-prop airliner - landed at 11.27 this morning at London Airport after five thousand miles non-stop flight of 13 hours 57 minutes over the Polar route direct from Vancouver on the Pacific coast of Canada.

Cruising at a true air speed of 350 m.p.h. in the smooth upper air at 35-thousand feet the Britannia clearly demonstrated the new standard of travel that Canadian Pacific will introduce to passengers when in the summer the giant airliners are put into regular service on the Vancouver-Amsterdam Polar route.

Undertaking the long-range flight as part of its final test programmed before delivery to CPA, the Britannia carried 38 passengers including Mr Peter Masefield, Managing Director of Bristol Aircraft Ltd., and was returning from attending the opening ceremony of the huge new 1.4 million dollar CPA Britannia hanger at Vancouver Airport on February 22nd.

Mr Masefield said: "The CPA Britannia's non-stop flight from Vancouver to London in just under fourteen hours without significant help from the wind is a further demonstration of the unmatched long-range capabilities of this aeroplane. On landing we still had fuel for a further two and a half hours. We flew across Canada and on over the Atlantic above almost unbroken cloud. Indeed the first sight of the ground after passing over the Rockies was Staines Reservoir. Performance figures measured on the flight show that the CPA Britannia exceed the guarantee figures on all counts. The Britannia is now the only aeroplane to have made non-stop flights between London and Vancouver in both directions."