One of Lufthansa's most well publicized achievements was a service to remote China. In February 1930, Lufthansa and the Chinese Transport Ministry signed a ten-year agreement for the operation of an airline called Eurasia, which would be operated by Lufthansa. Establishing service to China proved to be a big challenge for the Germans. There were no aerial maps of China, no radio stations, no repair shops, and no airports, only rudimentary landing strips. Although there were problems with the route—such as pilots getting lost because of navigational errors or pilots getting stranded for weeks without spare parts—the service proved to be commercially lucrative. By 1939, the Europe-China service extended over nearly 5,000 miles; Junkers aircraft had carried 52,000 passengers and over 2,000 tons of cargo. When the new Nazi government allied itself with the Japanese imperial government, the Chinese cut ties with Germany in 1941. It would be nearly 40 years before a German plane, a Lufthansa, would land again in a Chinese city.

Together Lufthansa Airlines and the Chinese Government formed Eurasia Aviation Corporation in February 1930. In 1934 Eurasia received their first of 9 Ju 52's. Ju 52 EU-XVII c/n 5104 originally was Lufthansa D-AGES named 'Otto Kissenberth'. On May 6, 1939 Japanese aircraft attacked Hanchung (Hanzhong) airfield strafing all the aircraft on the ground. EU-XVII was one of them and as a result burst into flames and was completely destroyed. In 1940 when Japan, Germany and Italy signed the Tripartite Pact the Chinese Government stopped operations of Eurasia and forced Germans out of the country.

EQUIPMENT OF THE EURASIA CORPORATION.

All the Eurasia lines have been operated, from the commencement of its activities to the present day, with all-metal planes, completely equipped with two.way radio apparatus and every device necessary to ensure flying efficiency and the safety of passengers. The first machines put into service by the company were two Junkers F-13 and two Junkers W-33 machines, which had already been tried in various parts of the world under the most rigorous and exacting conditions of commercial transport senice, and given outstanding proofs of satisfactory performance and airworthiness. These planes had been selected as being particularly suitable for the long-distance flights of the Eurasia air routes, the water-cooled motor of the Junkers LV 325 PS type being not only one of the most reliable but also exoeedingly economical and requiring the minimum of attention.

When the Manchuti run was suspended, however, and the flights to Sian and Lanchow su6tituted, these motors were found to be not high-powered enough to fly at full load with the requisite margin of safety over the high mountain ranges encounterci Some of these mountains are over r 2,000 feet high, while the Lanchow-Suchow ftgions are approximately 5,000 feet above sea-revel. Junkers W-34 planes, powered with the BMW-Hotnet motor of 525 PS, were there-fore purchased for the service. As a result of the improvement and expansion of the company's business during 1935, four more planes, the tri-motored Junkers Ju-52 which are capable of exceptional performances, were purchased and put into service in the second half of the year. Eurasia now possesses a fleet of nine planes, composed of five Junkers W-33 and W-34, and four Junkers JU-52. Brief speci- fications follow:-

TYPES OF AEROPLANES ON EURASIA SERVICE.

Date	Particulars	Pay Load	Passenger Seats	Type of Motor	Number of Motors	Horse-Power	Cruising Speed
1931-1932	Junkers F13	420 kilos	4 PAX	Water-Coole	single engine	320 hp	160 km.p.h.
1932-1933	Junkers W-33	600 kilos	4 PAX	Water-Coole	single engine	320 hp	165 km.p.h.
1933-1934	Junkers W-34	610 kilos	6 PAX	Air-Coole	single engine	525 hp	210 km.p.h.
1935-1936	Junkers Ju 52/3m	2,000 kilos	15 PAX	Air-Coole	tri engined	1,980 hp	260 km.p.h.

The excellence of the equipment and reliability of the Eurasia airways is amply borne out by the fact that the first forced landing in its history on account of motor trouble occurred after over 4,000 hours of flying-that is to say, after approximately 750,000 flown kilometres. In the first four years of Eurasia's operations, totalling 9,006 flying hours and 1,560,280 flown kflometres not one plane has suffered damage by reason of technical defects, and no fatal accident has ever overtaken a Eurasia passenger, though one plane unfortunately came to grief on November 27, 1935. This solitary accident in an other-wise clean record occurred when a Junkers monoplane, flying between Sian and Lanchow, crashed in making a forced landing due to ke forming on the wings~n occurrence responsible for a large proportion of cold-weather flying accidents in other parts of the world -and not attributable to any lack of skill or mechanical defect. To ensure greater safety, dine of the four new tri-motored Junkers aero-planes have now been placed in service on the Sian-Lanchow, Shanghai-Sian and Chengtu-Kunming routes, the fourth machine being kept in reserve. Considering that civil aviation in China is comparatively new, the Eurasia record is indeed a remarkable one, and will bear comparison with that of any other concern of its kind in the world.

While the company is forging ahead arid buying more modern, and better, planes, due attention is also being paid to the improvement of landing facilities and radio equipment, both so essential to safety in flying. The company has fully-quipped landing-fields at all stops along its routes-Shanghai, Nanking, Chengchow, Sian, Lanchow, Ninghsia, Paotow, Peiping, Hankow, Chengtu and Kunming-while along routes rendered difficult for flying either by the nature of terrain or severe climatic conditions, wireless stations are maintained at intermediate points, so that the machines are always in communication with ground stations en route throughout their flight. In Decembet, 1935, there were altogether 23 wireless stations at the regular airports and emergency landing-grounds, namely, Shanghai, Nanking, Chengcliow, Kwan Yin Tong, Sian, Pingliang, Lanchow, Liangchow, Ansi, Ninghsia, Paotow, Peiping, Hankow, Changsha, Hengyang, Tsengchow, Hsiuchow, Kwangchow (Canton), Hanchung, Kwangyuan, Soochow, Kwanghan and Chengtu. During 1936 five new wireless stations have been built at Suanwel, Fenghsien, Suifu, Kunming and Chingning. On the other hand the stations at Pingliang, Liangchow, Changsha, Hengyang, Tsengchow, Hsiuchow and Kwangchow have been suspended, as they were found to be unnecessary.

The principal function of all wireless stations is to maintain constant contact with machines in flight, report local weather conditions, and locate any plane which may have flown off its course. Furthermore, since June, 1934, local weather reports are sent out twice a day to assist meteorologists and aviators. These messages are collected by the Eurasia statton at Nanking and thence broadcast on a wave-length of 47 metres twice a day-at 8.45 a.nt and 2.45 p.m. Carrying aeronautical safety a step furthe; tests in "blind flying" were carried out in the summer of 1935. As a first step the "ground-to-air" system (direction-finders) was used along the Changsha-Canton section. The system was lately replaced by the "air-to-ground" (homing device) system, whkh enables pilots to fly unerringly to their destinations in fog and all kinds of weather. This method is now being wed along all the Eurasia air flnes.

As the distance between Shanghai and Chengtu is more than 2,000 kilornetres, with cotripulsory stops at Nanking, Chengchow and Sian, part of the journey has to be made after nightfall (during the winter season) if it is to be completed in one day. Eurasia therefore installed equipment for night-flying at Lunghwa station in Shanghai, immediately after the Sian-Chengtu line was opened in September, 1935. With the help of the homing equipmen; night-flying can without exaggeration be regarded as safe as flying during the daytime.