FLYING ROUND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 104, 1 May 1920, Page 17

FLYING ROUND THE WORLD.

Sir Ross Smith, who has been offered a chance by Messrs. Vickers of flying round the world on a seaplane, is credited with the estimate that the journey might be accomplished in 70 days. That seems rather disappointing, says the "London Daily Chronicle." Jules Verne's hero went round the world in j SO days, and fiction has long since been I eclipsed by fact. When the Siberian railway was opened! several American newspapers sent correspondents to break the "'record." The luckiest in making train and boat connections did the round trip in something over UO days. But even they were eclipsed by the performance of Lieut.-Colonel Burnley Campbell, as long ago as 1907. On May 3 in that year he set out to hustle round the globe by the ordinary rail and steamship routes, and was back again at the end of his round trip on June 14. His total time was under 42 days— actually 41 days 19A hours—notwithstanding that he went westward and lost a day by so doing. The colonel, in fact, almost exactly halved the time occupied by Phineas Fogg in Jules Verne's romance. At the time, indeed, it was shown that, by a very careful selection of connections and no bad luck, the journey could have been accomplished in 39 da;,"=.