HINKLER'S FLIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 10, 13 January 1932, Page 10

HINKLER'S FLIGHT

FEAT OF NAVIGATION

SHEET FROM AN ATLAS

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, 10th December,

Squadron-Leader Hinkler's plain story of his marvellous 10,000 mile flight from New York to London by way of the South Atlantic Ocean, told a few hours after his triumphal landing in his "Puss Moth" monoplane at Hanworth aerodrome, only heightens the' impression ■of matchless skill and daring which earlier information had made. Ho spoke, iii terse, unemotional sentences, of flying " blind "for sixhours over the Atlantic with only the luminous dials of his compass and turn indicator to help him, of hours spent five feet above the ocean, of tremendous thunderstorms—"the lightning flashes looked as thick as tree trunks" —and terrific squalls. x_. His extraordinary powers of navigation, helped by a sort of sixth sense developed in a vast experience of. longdistance flying, brought him to tho coast of the African continent only ten miles from the landfall he had selected before leaving Port Natal, in Brazil. Ho flew entirely by compass and dead reckoning, the, varying shapes and movements of tho clouds enabling him in some uncanny way to estimate the extent of drift caused by changes of wind direction. His map was a sheet torn trom an atlas, and the only instruments he used apart from the compass and the turn indicator, which kept him nying level when all was blackness around him, were clock,'air speed indicator, and altimeter. • Hinkler stated that his maximum range with the tanks lull was 25 hours at cruising speed. When he landed at Bathurst in the Gambia, about two-hours'fuel remained m the tanks. NOT FOOLHARDY ATTEMPT. Though lie depended so utterly on the perfect running.of.his 120;h.p. "Gipsy" motor, Hinkler's flight . escapes tho charge of foolhardiness because of the minute forward preparations, involving the most exact knowledge of fuel and oil consumption and the perfect conditioning of every detail of machine and engine, and also because of his exceptional qualities. Aircraft designer and builder,, inventor, brilliant test pilot and navigator,- Hinkler lias the rare, perhaps instinctive, ability • described in. the phrase, "ho has a compass in his head." When every possible allowance is made for knowledge ana tho precision of the elementary instruments -he employed for the 2000 miles dash across the open sea; there remains an inexplicable something which raises Hiukler. and a few other pilots right above their fellows To call it genius gives it a name, but docs not dispel the mystery. ■ Now Hinkler is face a with a long series of dinners, congratulatory meetings, decorations, and so forth. None has ever deserved them more than the gallant little Queenslander who in making the first light aeroplane grossing of the Atlantic,,the. first west to east aeroplane flight over the South Atlantic, and the' first solo transatlantic flight since Lindbergh's iournev in a much bigger and more powerful machine has credited.the British aircraft and aero engine industry end British pilotage with cne of the greatest.achievements: in the history of aviation. . , : . '. ■ ALMOST SKIMMING WAVES. vJw^t 1 Sta- ge of a '^P. from New Mr w- OiT ama, lea Was a tei»t-for 'what Mr. Hinkler always calls his "ship " Ho.loft in- the afternoon and arrived in Jamaica for 'breakfast next inorninjr. Thence he went by stages round the coast of,: South America; to Natal, in the north of Brazil, Vhere he was much struck by the plumage of the birds he disturbed. '.■;'...'■.: '' When -I. arrived there on '24th No. 7f f mb. er'" h« says, ."I had only one day left before the end of.thevfuU moon to a?v f Ul mZjow™y- So I started ff T next.morning. Tor the first 700 miles we were never more than sft above the surface of,the ocean because the south-easterly trade winds were blowing strong, and it did not seem wise to rise." IN MIDST OF LIGHTNING. A Nearly-midway .betweenAmerica'and Africa the airman took an upward slant to look: fo r the moon by which to set his course. And then the most terrifying of all things in Nature to a man in his position happened. The sky was covered with black clouds/and out of tnem rolled the most appalling thunderstorm. . . . ...'■*. "Chain lightning," says Mr. Hink-: ler, was everywhere. I have. never seen anything like it. I -had to fly right through .the storm, and every minute for an hour or more I expected that the next flash would.go- right through the ship. Scared? Oh, yes, I .was scared right enough.. I never thought then that I should live to grow along white beards But. I had, to. go on,:, /ou see. 1 here was nothing .else to do." _ After that,, it seems, everything was plain "I got to -Africa: by breakfast time.all right.-. I had aimed when I started at a place on the coast ten miles from Bathurst, ana I passed the coast first at a,point only, ten miles from my objective. I recognised it from the shape. I had never .flown over that.coast, before,: but. I haa studiea it all on the map ana knew what to look for. I. found my course by compass ana dead reckoning alone."