LONG-DISTANCE FLIGHT CONRAD BREAKS OWN RECORD

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30634, 28 December 1964, Page 11

LONG-DISTANCE FLIGHT CONRAD BREAKS OWN RECORD

(N.Z.P.A.* Reuter—Copyright) ST. PETERSBURG (Florida), December 27. Max Conrad, the American “flying grandfather.’’ landed at St. Petersburg yesterday after a non-stop 7858-mile transAtlantic flight from South Africa to claim a new aviation record, and said he was lucky to have made it.

The 61-year-old Conrad was headed for New Orleans from Cape Town in a twinengined Piper Comanche in a bid to (jreak his own world non-stop distance record for light aircraft of 7668 miles—a mark he set in 1959 by flying from Casablanca to Los Angeles.

But some 56 hours and 50 minutes after leaving Cape Town he was so low on fuel and heading into bad weather he decided to cut short the flight and land at St. Petersburg, having already surpassed his old record. “I was very, very lucky to have made it,” he told reporters at Clearwater airport.

Last Tuesday, Conrad landed his plane at Alexander Bay, South Africa, only a few hours after he had started out on his projected non-stop flight. The reason for landing after only 400 miles flight was put down to “technical trouble.” “Only Waves” The plane carried 720 gallons of fuel instead of the normal 90-gallon fuel load. Conrad’s route from Cape Town to the United States involved one of the longest continuous over-water hops ever flown by an aeroplane. From the time he left

Cape Town until he flew over Barbados he had 6300 miles of landscape consisting only of waves. His great-circle course, after Barbados, took him directly over San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Miami. Florida. In December, 1962. he made a 9500-mile delivery flight of a Piper aircraft to Christchurch from Pennsylvania. Turned Back Conrad told the reporters he had run into storms over the Western Atlantic near the Caribbean on Christmas Eve and nearly gave up the flight at Puerto Rico. Bucking the storm put him low on fuel and he had radioed in earlier yesterday that he might have to land at Fort Lauderdale or St. Petersburg. He decided to press on to

New Orleans, but over the Gulf of Mexico, as bad weather loomed, he worked out that he had already broken the record and so decided to turn back 200 miles to St. Petersburg.

“I was down to about 40 gallons of fuel, which might have got me there," he said of the decision not to keep on to New Orleans.

"But I could just sec myself pulling a boner and I got cautious and turned back. It wasn’t worth risking one blunder spoiling a good trip. I knew I had broken the record anyhow, so there didn’t seem much point in going on.” Talking of his troubles approaching the Caribbean, he said:

“I almost gave up last night. I didn’t think I was going to make it and almost landed at San Juan."