TOO MUCH WIND FOR SCOTLAND TO FLY IN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 70, 24 March 1914, Page 8

TOO MUCH WIND FOR SCOTLAND TO FLY IN.

Mr. Scotland is having the very worst of luck in the weather for the flight promised to the Wellington public. Late Sunday afternoon and the whole of yesterday morning could not have been better for flying, so far as conditions are ever hkely to be good in Wellington. At noon the prospects were still fair for a flight. Then a breeze began to blow ominously from the south, and away out over the sea the black batik of 'cloud gathered which is always reckoned a sure sign of a southerly. The wind increased all the afternoon, and soon was blowing well over twenty miles an hour— a safe limit for exhibition aviation over a city. At four o'clock the clouds were scurrying darkly over a threatening sky, aiid the wind in the higher levels as recorded at the wireless station was rising up to 38 miles an hour in gusts. The Government meteorologist (Rev. D. C. Bates), of whom Scotland says he has never yet told them wrong, was pessimistic as to any further chance of a flight. Only a few people came up to the Athletic Park, where Scotland was waiting for the weather. About five o'clock the sombre clouds broke into rain, which lasted on and off all night. This morning the wind was still strong, and at 2.30 this afternoon it was blowing gustily up at the wireless station, from 2 to 30 miles per hour. There appears, however, to be some slight abatement, and it may drop low enough to enable Scotland to get in a circuit or two before nightfall. Altogether the aviator is extremely disappointed, and regrets very much that he was not permitted to fly on Sunday alternoon or Monday morning, or both, as he feels to a certain extent 'that his reputation may suffer with the Wellington public, in spite of his performances in the Soutn Island, unless the opportunity presents itself for an early flight.