A SPORTING FLIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 134, 8 June 1926, Page 6

A SPORTING FLIGHT.

Adventure has left the sea and taken to the air; the spirit of Columbus and Drake now soars above the clouds reincarnated in such men as the Marchese di Pinedo and Alan Cobham, who will go down to flying history as two of the gamcst sportsmen who ever took the air. Cobham's great flights to Tangier and back, to India and Burma, and to Capetown and back, were wonderful adventures, especially as they were made ill the one plane, and with very little preparation. Commander di Pinedo's flight from Rome down the Mediterranean and through the Red Sea to India, thence by way of the Straits Settlements to Perth, round Australia, and up by way of the East to Tokyo, and then back to Rome along the coast of Asia, a flight of 30,000 miles, is generally regarded as the greatest feat of aviation ever accomplished, not even excepting the transAtlantic flights and Ross Smith's great flight to Australia. On that wonderful air voyage the Italian officer had only one man with him, he made no arrangements at the points where his seaplane was to stop for supplies of petrol, but I relied on being able to pick up sufficient Ito carry him on to the next point. He took short cuts overland, though his Savoia seaplane must have crashed badly if the engine had failed, and he kept to schedule time all the way, arriving at each stopping station within a few hours of his expressed intention. He had only one mishap, and that of a minor nature.

The flight he now plans is one that appeals to the imagination. For 60,000 miles he will fly oversea, over long stretches of empty ocean where forced descent means inevitable death, tremendous "hops" which would test the Stamina and reserve force of a giant among men. Valparaiso to Easter Island, then to Manganeva, Tahiti, Pagopago, Suva, Noumea, and Auckland—any one of them a daring pioneer flight, each but a link in a 60-hour flying chain. A great endeavour truly, and deserving of success if only for its very boldness.