SOLO TASMAN FLIGHTS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27094, 18 July 1953, Page 6

SOLO TASMAN FLIGHTS

NINE CROSSINGS IN LIGHT PLANES

FIRST BY MENZIES IN JANUARY, 1931

In the last 22 years, nine flights across the Tasman have been made by pilots in single-engined aircraft. Eight have been made from Australia to New Zealand, and one in the opposite direction. The first solo flight was made in 1931, and the eighth in 1950. In 1931, the Tasman was crossed in slightly more than 12 hours, compared with Mr J. L. Whiteman’s .time yesterday of 3hr 31min.

Three years after the first crossing of the Tasman by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Mr C. T. P. Ulm in the Fokker monoplane Southern Cross in 1928, Mr Guy Menzies landed in a swamp at Harihari, 53 miles routh of Hokitika, after flying from Sydney in an Avro Snorts Avian biplane on January 7. The next flight was made from west to east by Mr Francis Chichester in a Gipsy Moth fitted with floats. He flew from Parengarenga Harbour, near North Cape, to Norfolk Island on March 28, and then to Lord Howe Island. There the aircraft tipped over on its moorings, and Mr Chichester was unable for three months to continue his flight to the coast of New South Wales.

On November 22, 1934, Messrs R. G. Whitehead and R. Nicol! flew a Puss Moth monoplane from -Australia to New Zealand. They landed on a beach on the east coast near Auckland, spent the night there, and flew on to Mangere the next day. On October 18. 1935, Mr W. M. OHara, a tea planter from Java, flew the Tasman in a Klemm Eagle. The flight took 12hr 47min, and Mr O’Hara landed at Mangere by the light of motor-car headlamps. On October 16, 1936, Miss Jean Batten flew the Tasman in a Percival Vega Gull. She landed at Mangere after a record flight from England. She made the Tasman journey in 10hr 30min. On November 15, 1936, Mr L. E. Clark, of Christchurch, who was christened the “Flying Farmer” because he said he was flying home from England to New Zealand to look after his sheep, crossed the Tasman in a Percival Gull in 12hr 49min. He landed at Woodbourne, near Blenheim, and continued his flight to Wigram on the same day. He landed at Wigram at night. Eleven years later, Mr H. Newton made the seventh solo flight across the Tasman to complete a 22-day flight from Belgium in an Ercoupe sports monoplane with a 75 h.p. engine. He left Coff’s Harbour, New South Wales, early on the morning of October 9, and reached Whenuapai 12J hours later, after an emergency landing on the beach at Lord Howe Island. Mr Newton made a night landing on the flare path at 8.27 p.m. In 1950, Captain A. J. Bradshaw, now of Nelson, flew the Tasman in a Percival Proctor monoplane. He took two days on the journey. He flew from Coff’s Harbour to Norfolk Island in 6hr 19min on June 27, and from Norfolk Island to Auckland on June 28 in 4hr 6min.