Conrad Joins Air Race

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31981, 7 May 1969, Page 18

Conrad Joins Air Race

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright?

NEW YORK, May 6.

Mr Max Conrad, known as “the flying grandfather,” will take off in a twin-engined light plane for London today in an attempt to win one of the 21 prizes in the transatlantic air race.

Mr Conrad, a 66-year-old grandfather who holds several solo flight records, has already flown the Atlantic alone more than 130 times. Contestants in the air race, sponsored by the London “Daily Mail” compete for the fastest time in either direction between the eighty-sixth floor of - New York’s Empire

State Building and the top of London’s tallest structure, the General Post Office tower.

A Czech-American pilot, Mr Vladimir Kazan, of Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, is expected some time today in his attempt to win the fastest-round-trip category of the race.

The best time to date in the week long race was set on Sunday when a supersonic Royal Navy Phantom jet broke the New York-London record with a ground-to-ground 5 hours 3 minutes and 18 seconds.

Highlights of the race yesterday were the arrival of Squadron Leader Thomas Lecky-Thompson, of the R.A.F., who captured the lead in the subsonic category when he landed a Harrier “jump” jet—a revolutionary vertical take-off and landing aircraft—on a pier in the East River.

It was the first jet to land on Manhattan Island. Thompson’s official time was 6 hours 11 minutes and 57.15 seconds. Another arrival yesterday was round-the-world flyer, Mrs Sheila Scott, the holder of several records for solo flights. She piloted a single-engine Piper Comanche and arrived after a treacherous flight exactly 26 hours 54 minutes 1.81 seconds after leaving the Post Office tower.

She it the first in the race to complete the transatlantic, hop in the light aircraft cate-.

gory, 's Mist Scott said she had' eight hours of solid icing on the wings while crossing the Atlantic.