RETURN BY BOAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 77, 1 April 1932, Page 7

RETURN BY BOAT.

MOLLISON WANTS REST. (Received 11.30 a.m.) CAPETOWN, March 31. Mr. J. A. Moll is on, who broke the record for the England to Capetown flight, will return to England by steamer in order to gain a rest and to enable him to complete a correlation of his experiences so that the flight will not be useless.

MISSING FLYERS. CLAIMS BY WIDOWS. COLUMBUS (Ohio), March 24. The fatal flight that Parker Cramer and his mechanic, Oliver Paquette, made in an effort to blaze a mail route from the United States to Copenhagen, in which they crashed after leaving the Shetland Islands, was the subject of claims of £1300 by Mrs. Fannie Cramer Ward, of New York, and Mrs. Paquette, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, made before the Ohio Industrial Commission. The amounts asked are the maximum awards under the Ohio laws.

Both men were employed in making the survey for the Thompson Aeronautical Company, of Cleveland. They started their flight from Detroit and followed a route across Greenland and toward Copenhagen. After leaving the Shetland Islands they were never heard from. The wreckage of their 'plane was found off the English coast.

AERIAL WEAKNESS. SEVERE FRENCH CRITICS. PARIS, March 24. Severe criticism was launched in the Chamber of Deputies against the condition of French military and civil aviation, in which it was charged by several speakers that France was ill-prepared to meet sudden aggression from the air. The French pursuit 'planes to-day are little better than those need during tha World War, declared M. Georges Scapini, a blind veteran.

"What would happen," he continued, "if some day the huge bomb carriers that now exist should drop the terrifically destructive bombs now being manufactured on Paris and on the central lines of communication? Means for the mobilisation of the French Army would be obstructed and the nation would be paralysed."

He said France possesses 290 'planes, which would be able to transport 254 tons of explosives 200 miles, or 119 tons 250 miles, while it did not have a single machine capable of carrying bombs 600 miles. Germany, he asserted, possesses 300 'planes, which could carry 190 tons 200 miles; 13G tons 280 miles; and 54 tons 600 miles. He said Italy was even better equipped.

Deputy Renaitour argued that France was much behind other nations in aeroplane speed. He said the United States had 'planes in regular daily service between New York and Washington which made ISS miles an hour, and also made unfavourable comparisons with British, Italian and German aviation.

The French failure to compete in aviation production was attributed by other speakers to the multiplicity of endeavour.