AIR SPEED RECORD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 78, 2 April 1928, Page 7

AIR SPEED RECORD.

Italian Averages 318 Miles Per Hour. BRITAIN'S TASK HARDER. ROME, April 1.

By achieving an average speed of 318.8 miles an hour, Major Bernardi broke his own air speed record by roughly 22 miles an hour and considerably increased Britain's task of regaining the honour.

During one lap Bernardi achieved the phenomenal speed of 348.38 miles an hour.

The weather was perfect and the sea calm when he took off. He covered the course eight times, outwards and home, after which the average was worked out. He was flying at a height of only 150 feet when he was timed at 348 miles an hour. He theh flew over Venice, carried out a number of spectacular loops and made a perfect landing in a canal. Bernardi's 'plane ,was the one used in the Schneider Cup contest, but each wing had been stortened by several inches. 1 . ■ LANCASTER AT SYDNEY. WELCOMED BY BIG CROWD. . SYDNEY, April 1. W. N. Lancaster and Mrs. Keith Miller, wife of a Melbourne journalist, who have flown from Croydon to Australia, have arrived at the Mascot Aerodrome, Sydney. The two aviators were welcomed by a large crowd.

Mrs. Keith Miller, formerly Miss Jesfcie Beveridge, is< 20 yearß of age, and iB thfe only daughter of the late Mr. S. Beveridge and Mra. Beveridge, of Alexandra Street, East St. Kilda. She was born at Southern Cross, Western Australia, where her father Was manager of the Commercial Bank. Later on the family moved to Broken Hill, and then to Timaru, New Zealand, where Mrs. Miller was educated at Craighead School. From childhood she was fond of sport, especially swimming, riding, and tennis. She would think nothing of swimming a long way out from shore

nor of riding any

horse that was brought to her. In

April last she went to England to visit some of her father's relatives in London, and there met Captain and Mrs. Lancaster. For some time Captain Lancaster had "been planning a flight to Australia, and it was.agreed that Mrs. Miller should go as passenger. Most of the organising work was done by Mrs. Miller, Captain Lancaster attending to the preparation of the 'plane.