AIRCRAFT INSPECTOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 8

AIRCRAFT INSPECTOR

VISIT TO DOMINION

THE TRAINING MACHINES

(From The Post's" Representative.) 7 LONDON, October 9.

A visitor to New Zealand by the Rangitata, which is due at Auckland on November 17, will be Mr. Norman Hodgson, formerly of Palmerston North. Mr. Hodgson is to travel throughout the Dominion to inspect aeroplanes sent out by Messrs. Phillips and Powis, aircraft contractors to'the British Air Ministry, and Dominion and foreign Governments, who recently built fouri Magister Hawkes for the New Zealand Air Force. 33 , . * The Magister Hawk is the latest low-winged monoplane in the world, and the first of the type to be used generally as a trainer. It has been adopted as the standard training machine by the British Government, whose orders, together with those of special reserve training schools in England, total 200. The machines to be sent to New Zealand are identical with the aeroplanes ordered for use in the British Royal Air Force. The designer is Mr. F. G. Miles, managing director of Phillips and Fowls, who has had the assistance of his wife, also a designer and pilot The Magister is a development from the Hawk. Several machines were sent to New Zealand from Reading, but since they were dispatched there have been some improvements, and in order that New Zealand shall be fully informed of these changes the company is sending out Mr. Hodgson, who is regarded as one of their best inspectors. Mr. Hodgson will remain a few months in New Zealand and will bring back a detailed report to Mr. Miles. ■ ■ . It was Messrs. Phillips and Powis that, with great reluctance, had to refuse an order for aeroplanes from New Zealand some time ago. At that time so many orders were being received that it was impossible for the company to cope with them. Now, however, the factory at Reading has been reorganised so that no fewer than 10 to 12 aeroplanes are being completed regularly every week. Mr. Miles said yesterday that it had been a great disappointment to him to have to turn down the New Zealand order. "I am glad to say, however, that we shall not have to refuse any further orders should they be given," he said. "Our factory can how turn out any number that may be required,"