Feuding Pilots Ready To Race

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30442, 16 May 1964, Page 2

Feuding Pilots Ready To Race

(NZ Pres* Assn— Copyright) COLUMBUS (Ohio), Mav 14.

A quiet, growing feud between America’s two long distance women pilots came into the open today when Mrs Jerrie Mock charged that Mrs Joan Merriam Smith was “a poor loser,” United Press International reported.

Mrs Mock became the first woman to fly solo around the world on April 17 when she landed her single-engine Cessna 180 here after a 29-day flight.

Mrs Smith, who left Oakland. California, several days before Mrs Mock left Columbus on her flight, arrived back in California on Wednesday in her twin-engined Piper Apache. Mrs Smith, upon her return, had been critical of the shorter distance flown by her competitor and claimed she was the first woman to completely circle the globe.” “I went the distance required for the record,” Mrs Mock said today. “I tried to prove light planes are reliable. I’m afraid Mrs Smith’s flight has hurt aviation by continuously spotlighting the malfunctions of her equipment” Mrs Mock, when told today that Mrs Smith had suggested the two women have a race, said she “would be glad to.” “I would suggest Guam to Oakland and I’ll use one engine." Mrs Mock said. Mrs Smith took more than three weeks to fly the GuamOakland section of her globetrotting flight while Mrs Mock flew it in less than a week. Locked Out By His Fair Lady The millionaire lyricist Alan Jay Lerner has been locked out of his Manhattan

town house by his French-|l born wife after she filed suit ; for legal separation, a spokes-’ man for Lerner said today. Mrs Micheline Lerner, a former Parisian lawyer and member of the French bar. filed the suit in the New York ; Supreme Court yesterday, i charging Lerner with cruel and inhuman treatment. Legal I 1 sources said she was demanding more than 100,000 dollars' 1 annual alimony. The spokesman for Lerner,; 1 who has reputedly earned i 8,500,000 dollars (about £3m) 1 from his fabulously successful 1 musical “My Fair Lady,” said I the lyricist returned home i after dining with friends last ' night to find that all the locks •

[had been changed. He was unable to gain entrance.—NewYork, May 14. N.Z. Entries Two women will represent New Zealand at the New York World’s Fair exhibit of colour photographs. They are Mrs E. D. Kendall, of Mangere East, Auckland, and Miss A. Westra, of Wellington, who are among 300 winners in a sponsored international competition that attracted more than 150,000 entries from 58 countries. They will have prints of their entries in “The World and its People.” —(PA.)