WORLD TOUR BY AIR

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 130, 4 June 1931, Page 20

WORLD TOUR BY AIR

MRS. VICTOR BRUCE HER RETURN TO ENGLAND (From The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 2lih March. ■ Many important people in British aviation, including several women pilots, greeted Mrs. Victor Bruce at Croydon aerodrome when she returned to London at tho close of a world tour by air and sea wliicli began nearly six months ago. Piloting the "Bluebird" light aeroplane which carried her nearly' 20,000 miles, Mrs. Bruce flew the last stage of her long journey from Lympue, on the Kentish coast (where she landed tho day before) escorted by ;i triumphal "squadron" of private ilyors, among whom were Miss Winifred .Spooner and Miss Amy Johnson. . Mrs. Bruce flew on 47 days, meeting all. kinds of weather and traversing some of tho most difficult flying country in the world. When she left England her total Hying experience barely totalled forty hours, and her entire knowledge of air navigation comprised facts learned in five lessons. That she succeeded, with thia small equipment of experience And knowledge, in making her way safely across tho world is striking proof of the trustworthiness and inherent simplicity of the modern light aeroplane. She was obliged by impossible weather conditions to land on two or three occasions, and once or twice she. lost her way, but her invariable safe arrival, and the success of a most ambitious project relegates those "incidents" to a place of minor importance. Looking back over her journey, Mrs. Bruce expressed the opinion that the worst stage was that across the dense. forests of. Siam whore for mile after mile there was no place where a forced landing might be accomplished in safety. Her machine, the Blackburn "Bluebird," is an allmetal light biplano normally fitted with two. seats,. placed side by side instead of the more usual tandem arrangement. It is fitted- with a "Gipsy IT." aircooled four-cylinder motor of 120 horsepower. ' '• .' , .' •