HERO OF THE AIR

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 55, 6 March 1914, Page 11

HERO OF THE AIR

HAWKER IN SYDNEY. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, 21st February. Harry Hawker, hero of the air, is in Sydney, and is being treated as a hero. He was given a splendid civic reception. There was much talk about the feats he had performed and about aviation in general. Hawker rose timidly to reply. You could have heard a pin drop. All eyes were on him. "Now," thought tho Lord, Mayor, the Government representatives, and the citizens, "we shall hear something about the wonders of flying." But Hawker only said, " I thank you, gentlemen." Not that he suffers from "nerves"— it is out of his line, that's all. Nor does he claim to be a man with an iron nerve, as an airman is popularly supposed to be. " Flying is quite simple," he says, "and quite safe in. a modern flying machine. I don't think any more of it than yon do of going for a ride in a motor-car— not as much. If you know your engine you needn't worry about anything else. There's no danger in flying in present-day machines. If they do turn over they'll right themselves again." Hawker made a preliminary flight on Thursday, and to-day he gives a public exhibition at the Randwick racecourse. The Governor-General and the State Governor intend to be present, and there will doubtless be a great gathering of the public to see this man who has made a name for himself (and for Australia) on the other side of the world. When he was in Melbourne Hawker went up for a flight— went up to a great height —and the Argus reporter remarked that from that height he saw what "this terrestrial ball" meant. It lay "like a ball at his feet." Some interesting correspondence has ensued. One writer refers to the Argus reporter as indulging in -'a great flight of imagination," and assures that young gentleman that the earth is a far bigger thing than he takes it for — that, in fact, far from seeing the ball at his feet, Hawker, from the height to which ho ascended, would see the earth as a gigantic basin beneath him, his range of vision extended greatly. Another writer remarks that distance not only lends enchantment to the view, but that It p[&o lends illusion, and that when a man is thousands of feet away fiom the earth he might easily imagine himself ttway.bdow thejsarth insteadpf above it, |