"A WALL OF WATER"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 125, 22 November 1935, Page 15

"A WALL OF WATER"

MONSOON REGIONS

DANGER TO FLYERS

(From "The Post's'- Representative.) SYDNEY, November 33.

Mr. Norman Littlejohn, who recently completed a honeymoon flight from England to Sydney, passed over the j a area where Sir Charles Kingsford Smith a( is missing, and was forced to fly a , through a storm there. Moreover, he m has had considerable experience of the n] area during his service in the East tc with Royal Air Force flying-boats, and c] his comments on Kingsford Smith's chances show a degree of authority. . He said that his own Klemm monoplane cruised at 110 miles an hour ni through the storm, but the weight of ai the storm water was sufficient to force pi him down, and it was with the, utmost , difficulty that he saved the aeroplane n' from going into the sea. "My opinion 't is that if an aircraft, like Kingsford fr Smith's, travelling at 200 miles an s( hour, were driven through one of these storms, either the engine would be completely torn out of the fuselage or « the wings would collapse," he con- a< tinued. "In the event of a landing on s; the sea owing to eng>ne trouble, the machine would probably float for a considerable time, if its buoyancy was » good, because the winds ai c mostly oft- " shore and the seas calm. The only 1 way in which the machine could be P driven through the sto>"Ti would be at h as low a speed as possible, otherwise g it is similar to flying a machine into o solid water." v Mr. Littlejohn expressed the opin- C ion that a safe landing in a modern d aeroplane at other than the small h grounds maintained by the Royal Air t< Squadron was impossible. A modern y aez-oplane was not like the old type, a which had a slow landing speed and £ could be "pancaked" on tree tops, o When a fast aeroplane touched tree v tops it would be travelling at about c 60 miles an hour. Anybody who had seen the result of a motor-car that hit ! a post at 60 miles an hour could imagine what would happen to the light S structure of an aeroplane. The wings |] would probably tear away, and the l] machine dive through the trees down " to the ground. *! NEARLY DISASTER. j, There were, he said, three types of o storms. The first which was the nor- t mal one, through the monsoon, was c known as the grey storm. The second, a which was of greater severity, was the r black storm, in which visibility was v definitely not more than 50 yards, but n the storm could be flown through. Thfc j worst type of storm, which was of a comparatively small area, was known i • as the brown storm, and warnings had v. been issued a number of times to air- \ craft following that route that there s was extreme danger of an aeroplane t 1 being beaten down to the surface by j ; the weight of water. ' It was this last- € 1 named type of storm that nearly c ' brought him to disaster a fortnight c ; ago. Sir Charles Kingsford Smith j 1 might have wrecked the machine on ] 1 a beach and be quite safe himself and j ; his mechanic, but the beaches were ; ■ very deceptive—muddy, soft, and slop- \ '' ing. The worst thing that could hap- < 1 pen to him would be ■'o land in the = mangroves where he could neither be 1 reached nor get out o£ them. i A Sydney resident, Mr. G. Hilton i ' Ford, has had considerable experi- ( !• ence of the Mergui Archipelago, and ] 3 takes a more hopeful view of Kings- > ' ford Smith's chances. /"Assuming," he \ • said, "that the aeroplane has been ] r forced down on the mainland or on , 1 one of the many hundreds of islands . 1 of the Mergui Archipelago, and the , 1 occupants have escaped unhurt, it may ' 3 be quite possible for many days and \ - even, perhaps, weeks to elapse before ■ 1 the flyers could get into communica- . 5 tion with the outside world. The is- , 5 lands are heavily timbered and are ', practically uninhabited, and many are seldom visited, except occasionally by ' t nomadic fishermen. Owing to an , , abundant rainfall, water would be f available, and with game and fish r plentiful it should be possible to susI tain life for a considerable period. We . should not lose sight of the fact that '_ transport and communication in southj crn Burma and Siam are very primis tive, and so may prolong the silence c of these gallant airmen." j ;, A PREVIOUS CRASH. I y It is also recalled here that Eric | Hook and James Matthews had such 3 an experience when they attempted a II flight to Australia in 1930. The pair c, left Akyab on July 3, and when a week's intensive air and sea search c had yielded no result all hope was r abandoned. Then on July 13, news c was received at Rangoon that Matthews c had arrived at Prome in a serious condition. They were about four hours c out of Akyab when they encountered l" heavy monsoonal rains and the aeroplane crashed in jungle country near ? the Yoma Mountains. On landing it became lodged in a clump of bamboos, X where it remained momentarily before ? sliding to the ground. Both men j were uninjured, but Hook was suffering from fever and he rapidly became £ weaker after the pair had commenced ° an aimless march in the slender hope ,of encountering a village. Eventually Hook, who was sinking rapidly, could ° go no further. Matthews decided to push on alone, but it was only after days of wandering that he found a 1 village and made arrangements to send „ help to Hook, although he considered ° that it would be too late.