BIG GLIDER FLIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 5, 6 July 1943, Page 4

BIG GLIDER FLIGHT

N.Z. PILOT'S STORY

(Speelal P.A. Correspondent.)

I Rec. 10.50 a.m. LONDON, July 5. j "On the whole, it was a rather boring i [flight. When the weather was good lit was just a matter of sticking in 'George, 1 the automatic pilot, and i twiddling knobs." said Flight Lieu- ; tenant Charles W. H. Thomson, of i Stratford, commenting on his freighter[glider flight over the Atlantic. Flight Lieutenant Thomson was co-pilot in the Stowing aircraft Dakota. He was also | the navigator for the trip. I "It was an experimental trip, the ! culmination of others carried out preI viously," he said. "We took off from i Montreal for the first flight. It was ! about the worst of the whole journey. ; If we hadn't been crazy we would have i turned back. It started pleasantly I enough, but the clouds got higher and : higher, and we had not sufficient power i to climb over them, so we had to come j down right underneath, encountering I icing and thunderstorms. WAIT FOR BETTER WEATHER. i "We did not feel so many bumps in i the aeroplane as they did in the i glider. However, we landed'safely and I then stayed at the first airport awaiting better weather reports. : "The next stage of the flight, apart ifrom the first hour, when again we could not climb over cloud, was a §ood trip We saw many large icer ergs and then flew between the layers iof cloud We remained a short time lat the next airport, where we were i lent fishing tackle, with which we I tried to catch cod and trout. We also i climbed a mountain which reminded ime of my Tongariro days. „ I "On the next stage we flew on the ! instruments for a start, and then the i weather cleared rapidly. It was an ! uneventful flight, and the weather was i the best of the whole trip. When we ; came down we found that the weather I reports were good, so we took off very I soon at 5 a.m. This lap seemed long ! and monotonous. We were feeling rather tired, as none of us had had 1 more than an hour and a half of sleep i— and I missed that. Navigation was a simple job. I took turns at flying." FOUR YEARS IN R.A.F. Flight Lieutenant Thomson began a short-service commission in July, 1939. He flew 350 operational hours in Hud sons, bombed Stavanger and Christian sand, and carried out daylight reconnaissances off the Norwegian coast. He went to Canada in July, 1941, to take a navigation course, and joined' the R.A.F Transport Command in November, 1941, as a flying instructor and also as navigator instructor. He was loaned to the British Overseas Airways Corporation for six months, and; acted as co-pilot and navigator for. Captain Moll—the famous Dutch air-! man who took part in the Melbourne; Centenary Air Race—when he flew j from Canada over the South Atlantic! to Cairo, and then to England. The; passengers included Prince Bernhard.j It was Flight Lieutenant Thomson's j second South Atlantic flight, the other having b?en made last Christmas,- when he delivered an aircraft to West Africa. While flying back he was offered three Christmas dinners —over Brazil, Trinidad, and Porto Rico. His introduction to towing gliders was informal. He was asked whether he "would like to come for a flight, accepted immediately, and took part in an experimental tow to the Bahamas and another from Montreal.