GREAT AIR CIRCUS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 265, 5 August 1937, Page 15

GREAT AIR CIRCUS

Thrills at Hendon’s Annual Pageant “Dominion’’ Special Service. —By Air Mail. London, July 10. The annual pageant of the Royal Air Force at Hendon is unique for thrills and magnificent pictorial effect. The spectacle of hundreds of aeroplanes chasing each other across the sky provides greater excitement for modern audiences than the tight-rope walker of the old-fashioned circus or the “death-defying” trapeze artist of an earlier generation. The heroes of the modern circus are highly-trained pilots driving white and silver aeroplanes that arre miracles of human ingenuity; the wide expanse of heaven is their stage and their aerobatics can hold any number of people spellbound. This year the display was on a larger scale than usual. Besides the spectacular effects there was a great deal of comic relief and a note of inconsequential humour dominated almost every turn. Five Gloster Gauntlet single-seater fighters roared up into the sky pouring out trails of gaudy-coloured smoke — and traced an aspidistra! .Some puny figures, supposed to be ruthless pirates, were sighted running with hopeless inadequacy across the enormous flying field, whereupon a low-flying fighter squadron swooped down and duly “dispersed” them. A sportsman with a shot-gun went up in an antiquated Horace-Farman biplane for a day’s shooting in the stratosphere, and a real observation balloon was brought down in flames by machines of the type used in the Grea't War. The never-failing stunt of the air circus clown, who appears about to fall and break his neck at any moment, was imnroved on by two pilots in an instructional plane, who indulged in “crazy flying” to the running accompaniment of comic remarks which were broadcast by wireless telephone through hundreds of loudspeakers; this caused huge delight among the spectators, who appreciated, nevertheless, the real skill and perfection of engineering efficiency that made the stunts possible.