SERIOUS HANDICAP

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 94, 18 October 1934, Page 13

SERIOUS HANDICAP

REDUCTION IN FUEL

DANGER OF LONG HOPS

(Received October 18, 11 a.m.)

LONDON, October 17,

Tho Australian Press Association's correspondent at Mildenhall says that the gale has subsided, but has been replaced by steady rain with bad visibility, offering little opportunity for trial flights. Competitors today are busy adjusting their machines, for several were found to be over tho permissible weight. Colonel Roscoe Turner's Boeing transport was several hundred pounds overweight owing to the change from the petrol with which it was originally weighted.

Apparently through a variation in the calculations of the constructors Captain T. N. Stack's Airspeed Envoy with the official test was found so pronouncedly over weight that Stack's range is understood to bo reduced from 1500 to 1000 miles. C. J. Melrose's Puss Moth was also over weight. Consequently a number of competitors are unable accurately to state their range pending a reduction in weight. In compliance with official instructions Roscoe. Turner carried a rubber raft which it is claimed can be inflated in fifty seconds and which will carry tho whole crow of three.

Both the Mollisons and Colonel Fitzmaurice declare that tho race regulations defeat their own. object by decreasing the range. Mr. J. A.' Mollison said that a machine might be forced clown in tho middle of the Bay of Bengal because overstiict regulations prevented it from carrying a full load of petrol, and also compelled tho carriage of emergency and safety equipment which further reduced the range.

No. 54 entry, Gilman and Baines, is expected tomorrow morning, leaving a maximum field of twenty-one.

Woods, despite a drastic reduction in his tankage, is still SO pounds over weight and as his range is already below a thousand miles he has little hope in the speed race. ,