Lord Bledisloe, Q.C. Flies Own Aircraft

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30388, 12 March 1964, Page 16

Lord Bledisloe, Q.C. Flies Own Aircraft

[From our London Correspondent)

LONDON, March 6. ’ Lord Bledisloe, a 64-year- i old London Q.C. and eldest ' son of the late Viscount Bledisloe, Governor-General i of New Zealand from 1930 i to 1935, does much of his 1 travelling round Britain and ] to the Continent in the Fair- i child Argus aircraft, with

which he is shown in the accompanying photograph, and which he pilots himself. He does not fly much during the winter, but when he does he uses the aircraft mainly to travel from White Waltham, where he runs the West London Aero Club, to a landing strip near his home at Lydney, in Gloucestershire. Occasionally Lord Bledisloe flies to Paris, Cannes, or Innsbruck. He is keenly interested in mountaineering and ski-ing, both of which he hopes to do in New Zealand one day. In spite of his close link with New Zealand through his father, Lord Bledisloe has not yet visited the country,

though this is something he expects to rectify when he has retired from the Bar. Lord Bledisloe learnt to fly in 1927 at Filton, near Bristol. In those days his brother owned a Moth aeroplane and they flew a great deal together. In 1941 he joined the Air

Transport Auxiliary, an organisation formed by Lord Beaverbrook and commanded by Sir Gerard d’Erlanger for the purpose of delivering aircraft of many different types from factories to the R.A.F. and the Fleet Air Arm. Here he learnt to fly most aircraft types, ranging from fighter planes to multiengined bombers and jets, both British and American.