ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 68, 20 March 1919, Page 5

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.

AUSTRALIAN TO ATTEMPT IT START FROM NEWFOUNDLAND LONDON, March 19.

The Australian-born aviator. Mr. H. G. Hawker, has left for Newfoundland. He intends to attempt the Atlantic flight at the earliest possible moment in a Sopwith biplane.

Hawker's biplane is fitted with a 375 horse-power engine, travelling with an economical patrol consumption at a hundred miles an hour. A wireless operator accompanies the pilot. The fuselage is constructed like a lifeboat, and is supplied with a scientific "tuckbox" containing two days' food in tabloid form. It is estimated that the journey will occupy nineteen hours. — (A. and N.Z. Cable.)

Hawker has been flying in Sop with biplanes for the last eight years, and he has made some very notable flights during that time. In "the "Daily Mail" allBritish waterplane race in August, 1913, he flew 1,040 miles, and received £1.000 for his record, though he did not win the full prize of £5,000 offered. He made a new British record for height, 12,900 ft, in .lune, 1913, and also the duration record of Shrs 23min, following this up with an altitude record for a machine with three passengers. At Brooklands last year he made a new world's record for height, 24,408 ft. Hawker accomplished a great deal of useful work during the war, both in personal flights and in training pilots. Hawker is now competing for the "Daily Mail's prize of £10,000 for the first flight across the Atlantic.

A FLIGHT TO AUSTRALIA.

(Received 10.50 a.m.i MELBOURNE, this day. With a view to stimulating-aerial activity the Federal Government is offering a prize of £10.000 for a successful flight from England to Australia on a machine manned by Australians.— (A. and X.Z.)