TO FLY COMET AIRLINERS

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26515, 1 September 1951, Page 3

TO FLY COMET AIRLINERS

Former Christchurch Resident SPECIAL TRAINING IN LONDON (From the London Correspondent ef "The Press”) LONDON. August 16. One of the few employees of the British Overseas Airways Corporation who have been specially chosen to become the world's first pilots of purejet airliners is First Officer Robert Miln Kidd, who was born and educa‘ted in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is one of the aircrew members of 8.0.A.C.'s Comet unit at London Airport. Members of the unit are now’ being trained to fly the de Havilland Comet four jet-engined airliner, which will go into passenger service on some 8.0.A.C. routes about the end of 1951. Although thoroughly experienced in flving piston-engined aircraft. First Officer Kidd and his colleagues are undergoing a thorough reconversion course to perfect their technique in jet flying. Mr Kidd was born in Christchurch in September. 1919. He was educated at the Linwood School, the Christchurch Technical College, and Canterbury University College. He is the son of Mr and Mrs A. M. Kidd, of 90 Woodham road, Christchurch. Mr Kidd was apprenticed as an electrical engineer and later as a fitter and turner with the Railways Department before the Second World War. He served as a pilot, with the rank of Flight Lieutenant, in the Royal Air Force from 1941 to 1946. and joined the British Overseas Airways Corporation in April, 1947. He flew Constellations and Stratocruisers on the trans-Atlantic service until February this year, when he was '«lected for the Comet unit. He has logged 3600 flying hours, representing more than 700,000 miles.

Mr Kidd is married, with one son. He now lives at Bristol. The Comet will first go into service with 8.0.A.C. along the route from London via Rome to Cairo, and its use will be extended to the service to Singapore and Johannesburg as early as possible in 1952. A longer-range version of the aircraft will later be used on the trans-Atlantic route.