FLIGHT ACROSS TASMAN

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 84, 7 January 1928, Page 9

FLIGHT ACROSS TASMAN

NEW ZEALAND AVIATORS HOPE TO START TO-MORROW i MAY SET COURSE FOR WELLINGTON OR GREYMOUTH CAPTAIN KIGHT ON THE OBJECTS OF THE PROJECT >. The New Zealand aviators have completed all preparations for the flight across the Tasman Sea and hope to start to-morrow morning, if the weather conditions are perfect for flying. The question whether a course shall be set for Wellington or Greymouth, which is an alternative landingplace, will be decided when halfway across the Tasman.

By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.

(Rec. January 6, 8 20 p.m.) Sydney, January 6. The New Zealand aviators have completed all preparations for their flight, and are only awaiting favourable weather conditions to make the start. They realise the element of risk in crossing 1450 miles over the Tasman Sea in a pioneer flight, even under the most auspicious circumstances,, and are determined not to take any foolhardy risks. They are hopeful of getting away early on Sunday morning, but will only start then if the weather is perfect for flying. They are leaving early in the morning so as to utilise the maximum amount of daylight. It has not yet been decided whether Captain Kight or Captain Hood will accompany Lieutenant Moncrieff. The two pilots will take turns at the joystick, and for two-hour spells each will have control of the ’plane while the other rests. Whether the machine will make direct for Wellington will not be decided till half-way across the Tasman, when the bearings will be taken and a course set

for either Wellington or Greymouth, the proposed alternative landing-place. The machine has been put through ' eveiy possible test,'and the flyers are confident it will prove equal to what it is required to do. CAPTAIN KIGHT INTERVIEWED. Captain Kight, interviewed by a Press Association representative, strongly stressed the point that he wished . the public, both in New Zealand and Australia, to understand that there was nothing whatever in the way of a stunt or the gaining of personal kudos about the flight. At much personal inconvenience and financial risk, having received very small public support, the journey was being undertaken with the wider national objective of creating a deeper interest in the pressing question of the value of aerial defence in the Pacific zone and drawing into closer relationship the peoples of New Zealand and Australia in their commercial and other interests, thereby welding stronger the links in the great Empire unity ideal.