GREAT PERFORMANCE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 112, 14 May 1930, Page 11

GREAT PERFORMANCE

STILL AHEAD OF HINKLER

INTEREST IN AUSTRALIA

British Official Wireless. (Received 14th May, 11 a.m.) . RUGBY, 13th May; The splendid performance of' the twenty-two years old' girl aviator, Miss Amy Johnson,-who, 'by reaching Calcutta yesterday, had completed 5500 miles of her .attempted .flight to Australia, is being followed, with great interest. The journey to Calcutta occupied eight days, which.ls two days less than the time occupied by Bert Hinkler, who holds the record for a solo flight- to Australia. •■'.'■' Tho Air Minister, Lord Thomson, lias telegraphed his ' congratulations to the airwoman, wishing her success in the remaining stages of her flight. Her route from Calcutta lies, through Rangoon, Bangkok, and Surabaya to Port Darwin.; It is Miss Johnson's pre-sent-intention to'make tho return journey from Australia in the same ;cripsy Moth machine which she is now using. Before she acquired the machine, it had done considerable service, including long.flights when Captain' Hope used it last year to follow tho Prince of Wales On his African tour. . . MOST PERILOUS STAGE, Miss Johnston' left. Calcutta at 7 o'clock this'morning for Rangoon, a fur-, thcr stage of her attempted solo flight to Australia. : She reached; Rangoon beforo nightfall. . This was the ninth day of Miss Johnspn's flight and the most • perilous since she left,/ Croydon. Her direct route to Rangoon represented a distance of six hundred miles and involved a sea crossing; of nearly two hundred milns. This, is described as "danger route." The . alternative route, wliieh she declined to take, is along, the coast line before turning inland, and -if about on© hundred miles ■longer. She flew over huge stretches of jungle with.no possibility of receiving aid if her machine had to come dowi.. : Oversea a storm was raging which might have meant disaster. LITTLE PREVIOUS FLYING. Enthusiasm is growing in Australia over Miss Johnson's flight. A public fund is being initiated for presentation to her when she arrives at Port Darwin. It was tho Australian Bert Hinkler who set up .a record by flying home from London in fifteen and a half days. Miss Johnson1 was ahead of Hinkler, by two days when she reached Calcutta! Her present long flight is all' the more- remarkable, as she had done little solo flying, and it is reaveled that her longest solo flight previously was from London to Hull, 190 miles. The next stage of the' flight is from Rangoon to Singapore,-1200 miles.