SEARCHING FOR HINKLER.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20756, 17 January 1933, Page 7

SEARCHING FOR HINKLER.

i ♦—~ j CAPTAIN HOPE'S EFFORT. j WORKING FROM BASLE AS ! A CENTRE. i (-Junto r«,.«. AteOcUTH,»-.»» BLICIBIC I£LEG«APH—COPI&iGiT.) LONDON, January 15 Captain W. L. Hope (throe times winner of the King's Cup) got away ai 9 a.m. to-day, and is due at Basle (Switzerland) at 1 p.m. He will begin the search lor Hinkler this afternoon if possible. [An earlier message stated that Captain Hope lett , n a Hawk Moth machine with a mechanic and a wire less operator or, board, to make a wide search ot the Matter-horn Valley and to ct>mb the Alps m an endeavour to find Squadron Lender Bert Hinkler, but was forced by log to return to the aerodrome. Basle would be his daily heudj quarters.] i MYSTERIOUS AEROPLANE IN THE ALPS. POSSIBILITY OF CRASH AGAINST MOUNTAIN WALL. BASLE, January 15. j Captain W. L. Hope has received ihrough the Air Ministry a telegram from a British tourist saying that, while 7000 I'cet up a mountain near Morgins. he saw an aeroplane flyino-wist-soukh-east, which might have been Hinkler s It was apparently ht-ulina lor Snnplon. * Captain Hope thinks that Finbler lost his way, and possiblv crashed on a mountain wall. MANY REMARKABLE FEATS. HINKLER'S ACHIEVEMENTS. FIRST ACROSS THE SOUTH ATLANTIC. Squadron Leader Herbert Hinkler, who formerly held the record for the flight from England to Australia in 15J days, and who made the first solo flight across the South Atlantic from Port Natal to Bathurst, was born at Bundaberg, Queensland. From boyhood he took a great interest in flying, and constructed several gliders. In 1914, realising that England would give him more scope, , he went there, and when the war broke 1 out joined the Royal Naval Air Service, and later was given a commission in j the Royal Air Force. After the war he became a test pilot for the Avro Company, and in that capacity did excellent work. He won many races, and represented Britain in the Schneider Trophy race Of 1925. His flying experience ranged over every type of aeroplane. He was the first to take up the enormous Cubaroo, the largest single-engined machine in the world. He piloted 200 m.p.h. fighters, auto-giro aeroplanes, and the smallest light aeroplanes. It was in a baby machine that he flew 800 miles to Bundaberg, and alighted in the street before his home —the same aeroplane in whieh he mado the non-stop run from London to Turin —and in a £730 light touring machine he flew from London to Riga, 1200 miles, without a break in 10| hours. Record Flight to Australia. On February 7, 1928, he set out alone in the same machine from Loudon for Australia. In less than 10 days—--125 hours' actual flying time—be reached Port Darwin, the cost of his fuel, food, and accommodation —there were no repairs to pay for —being about £SO. He thus made the longest solo flight, the longest flight in a light aeroplane, the fastest journey between England and India up to that time, and the first non-stop run from London to Rome. Hinkler then flew from Pott Darwin to Bundaberg, and round Australia. He received £2OOO from the New South Wales Government and a similar sum from the Commonwealth Government, while other grants brought the total to SBOOO. For this feat the laternational Aeronautical Federation in 1629 gave him its gold medal, thus ranking him with such aviators as Lindbergh and Cobham. He was also awarded the Royal Air Force Cross, And given an honorary commission in the Australian Air Force. Hia Avro-Avian biplane with 'a Cirrus air-cooled engine uad little more than a tenth of the horsepower of the machine used by Ross and Keith Smith, whose record he beat by over 12 days. He then built to his own design a small two-engined amphibian machine, but, failing to interest people in it in England, took it to tho Unitod States. There he had no better luck, for he arrived in the midst of the big slump. | Crossing the South Atlantic. Goinf then to Canada, he bought a Puss Moth aeroplane and in this accomplished one of the most remarkable feats in aviation. Leaving New York on October 27, 1931, he made a nonstop night flight Of 1700 miles to Jamaica—a record achievement. Most of the way he flew practically blind for he had no light in his cabin and the moon, on which he relied to illuminate his compass, failed W* frequently. From Jamaica he crossed the Caribbean Sea in heavy rain squalls to Maracaibo, Veneauela, And then went on via Trinidad to Port Natal, Brazil.! I After being much delayed by the authorities he set out in November to cross the South Atlantic. The clouds were both dense and of unusual depth and for six hours the airman flew only a few feet above the sea. Then rising he tried to got above the clouds, but, this being impossible, drove on through them at lo,oeoft With a thunderstorm and terrific lightning raging around him. , Nevertheless he landed on the African on November 27 within 10 miles oTSi objective, Bathurst, British Gamb'a He had covered about 2000 miles in 22 hours, and was the first man to fly the South Atlantio from west to east single-handed. The fljght was also fh! flit; ever made across the Atlantic in a light single-engined machine. Most Notable British *ilot. In February, 1933, Squadron Leader Hinkler was awarded the Segrave Trophv, valued at £IOOO, for "the most outstanding demonstration of the possibilities Of transport by land an-, or water " while in March the International' Aeronautical Federation pronounced him the most notable BntuU pilot during 1&31. On December 19 itot " *** in a cablegram from London that he had announced that his Australian flight hid been postponed but that he must go later for business He then fonfirmed a report that ae had j "ceptefl a "circus" contract »«"* h, J\ *£ Bulkier arrived in Auckland by the

Rangitata on December 21, on liei way to Australia to meet her husband, and is still in that city, Hinkler was not only a very clever pilot and a first-class mechanic, but a navigator of remarkable skill, with an uncanny power of finding his way over unknown country and through tbe worst weather. He was also an inventor and designed the special under-carri&se which has been adopted as the standard for all Avians.