CROSSING COOK STRAIT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 120, 16 November 1929, Page 8

CROSSING COOK STRAIT

AN EXPERT'S ADVICE

"If I were crossing Cook Strait," said Wing-Conimander Grant JDalton, in. liis address at the Chamber of' Commerce luncheon yesterday, "I would, for safety's sake, cross it at a height of 6000 to 8000 feet. One would bo across w a quarter p'f a* hour, apd, even it the engine cut off halfway across at 6000 to 8000 feet; one'could •elsily-^t down to land, and at 10,000 feet if; would be surer still. > ' And it was nicer to be aloft, well aloft, because it- Was bumpier" down below. But by climbing one could get out of the "bumps " which gave one very much the same sensation as the sinking feeling at the pit of the stomach that one experienced when a lift suddenly seemed to drop away from under one's- feet.' The Imperial Airways' : 'planea used to'fly at 000 feet across the English Channel but tho peoplo hated it,' because the bumps" made them seasick. His motto, therefore, was "Keep well up: the higher the better."