N.Z. PLANE FLIES OVER 3500 MILES IN DAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 198, 21 August 1943, Page 7

N.Z. PLANE FLIES OVER 3500 MILES IN DAY

PYING a big Douglas Dakota of the Air Transport Service, an R.N.Z.A.F. crew has recently completed an amazing flight, which gives a revealing glimpse of the prospects of civil aviation in the days to come. With two stops for refuelling, the plane completed a transocean flight of over 3500 miles in less than 24 hours

Bound up with the achievement of that flight is a most interesting story. For obvious reasons place names cannot be given, but the flight covered a large area of the Pacific, with the starting point well away from New Zealand. It was entirely transocean, and the successful result is a tribute to the excellent navigational training being given to members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

The plane, captained by a flight - lieutenant from Hokitika, was the same one that established another record some weeks ago when it was flown over 1500 miles in less than eight hours. On this occasion, as then, the flight was an ordinary operational one. Over Two Tons of Mail The Dakota had been on a mission far to nor'-east of New Zealand, and for its return journey had a load of over two tons of mail for delivery to a forward island station in the South Pacific. The journey to this station normally occupies three days by air, with overnight stops at two island stations. It was four minutes past midnight (G.M.T.) when the R.N.Z.A.F. crew

took off on this cross-Pacific flight. The longest hop they made was over 1500 miles. As a guide in appreciating the full import of the flight it can be stated that the distance covered was equivalent in distance to:— (1) A flight from Wellington to the South Pole. - (2) From Dunedin to Darwin, northern territory of Australia. (3) From London to Moscow, two and a half times. (4) From Honolulu to Tokyo. Most of the time they travelled up in the substratosphere at 14,000 ft, but the crew suffered no ill-effects. They say they could have flown another 1000 miles if it had been necessary. Fjven the cat they carry as a mascot was untroubled by the substratosphere pressure—though, confidentially, he is reported to have left his mark on some of the mail! There were colourful incidents in plenty to break the monotony of flying. For instance, they crossed the equator and Father Neptune came aboard disguised as a wireless opera-tor-air gunner—to enipty a water bottle over the captain. As additional landmarks they crossed the 180 degrees meridian, from east to west longitude, and also the international date line. During the first night flight they saw a rainbow; and, in the vicinity of one of their two stopping places en route, where they encountered a "weather front," they saw two waterspouts in the sea. Owing to the fact that they were travelling in a westerly direction —