Aviation in 1928.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19413, 12 September 1928, Page 12

Aviation in 1928.

Although the crossing of the Tasman is at present, just a tremendous thrill for New Zealanders, it is also one among many great achievements which will probably make the year 1928 a most important one'in the history of aviation. "If its early promise be " fulfilled," said the Scientific American some months ago, " the year 1928 will "stand as one of the most notable in "aviation history," and since then Squadron-Leader Kingsford Smith has flown the Pacific and the Tasman, and two Italians have flown without stopping from Rome to Brazil. In the first three months of the year an' American stayed in the air for 54 hours, breaking the endtfrance record for aeroplanes, and Major Mario di Bernadi broke the speed record with an average of 318.67 miles an hour over a ten-kilometre course. While these feats were being accomplished Mr Bert Kinkier was engaged in the less spectacular but—from the commercial point of view—more important task of. flying in a little, one-man machine from London to Australia,. Later in the year Captain Wilkins crossed the North Pole, in an aeroplane, while the North. Atlantic was also, for the first time, crossed from east to west.. The most obvious development in the technique of, flying in 1928 has been the increasing use made of wireless in air navigation; indeed, it is not too much to say that most of the long-distance flights mentioned above would have ended in disaster had the wireless equipment been put out of action. • There have also been many developments in' aeroplane Cdflstruction, .one of the most notable of these being, the "'slotted" wing invented by Mr Handley Page, which goes a -long way towards making aeroplanes fool-proof. In the meantime the practical utility of the aeroplane is being increasingly realised, and the public are beginning to tur|l ta aviation with as much enthusiasm and interest as when they turned to motoring a quarter of a century ago. The formation of a light aeroplane club, -in Chnstchuroh is a pleasing reminder that New,Zealanders, despite their Comparative isolation, have caught $e spirit of the new age.