AVIATION

Evening Star, Issue 17279, 18 February 1920, Page 4

AVIATION

AMERICA’S DEPLORABLE UNREADINESS. Press Association B"y~Telegraph— Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. WASHINGTON, February 16. ino Congressional Sub-committee’s war expenditure report states that although than 1,000.000, OOOdol of the I, appropriated for aircraft construction have been spent up to date, the United States had shipped only 215 . Haviland airplanes to Europe by Armistice Day, but these machines were un..Vi? r ™ dern warfare. The report adds: n nor. . ar Department's statement that 11, JCK) airplanes were manufactured in the United States up to Armistice Day is deceptive, since the number included several thousand discarded and unsafe machines.” AMERICA’S COSTLY MUDDLING. WASHINGTON, February 17. According to a Congressional report by the War-time Aviation Investigation Comthe United States expended £200,000,000 during the duration of the war, but only placed 2K5 airplanes in active service, and these were copied from British models. , -f^ 16 Congressional aviation report adds that not a single American-built airplane participated in the war. CHRISTCHURCH TO ASHBURTON, [Special to the ‘ Star. ’] CHRISTCHURCH, February 17. Speaking of his flight from Christchurch to Ashburton this morning, Captain Diclcpon said although it was made at s,oCoft quite warm. The atmosphere at this time of tho year was never very cold. Even at a great height the weather was perfectly calm, and the flight was made without a bump. *'E’ C. H. Hewlett, deputy chairman of the Board of Directors of the Canterbury Aviation Company, who, with his daughter, aged 13 years, travelled by the aeroplane to Ashburton, said that they took the flight fairly easily, something like 80 to 90 miles per hour. The view of the plains from above was magnificent, paddocks in stock being plainly visible. The plains were just a chess-board of green and yellow squares. A distinctive feature was the enormous variety of shades of yellow and green. Speaking of ffying sensations, Air Hewlett said there was no sense of giddiness, which was quite different from what people imagined. It was really like sitting motionless above a world that slowly revolved. Mr Hewlett admitted that he did not like looking down from the top of a. high building, bub there was no sensation in looking down from the aeroplane.