WOMEN AS FLYERS

Evening Star, Issue 20052, 18 December 1928, Page 3

WOMEN AS FLYERS

QUESTION OF FRIGHT. In breaking a lance with Captain C. I). Barnard, the well-known pilot, who taught her to tly, the Duchess of Bedford makes a spirited defence of her sex in the realm of aviation Some time ago Captain Barnard wrote an article in which he declared that there could bo no sex equality in, tho air, and that women were inferior to men as flyers. From this opinion fire duchess entirely dissents, and in a letter to a newspaper she points out tho achievements of Lady Heath, who made an altitude record for light machines, and those of other women aviators. Particularly does she take Captain Barnard to task for writing the following:—"'When a woman has been interviewed by a newspaper reporter or has written her account of some flight . . . the old phrase crops up again and again: ‘I was not frightened, at all.’ “It is a queer thing that one never secs that statement by a man. , . . When a woman says she was not frightened she might as well admit the absence of some other faculty, such as sight or hearing. She , is deficient from-a menial standpoint. - ’ To this the duchess makes the piquant retort: “In an article written by Captain, Barnard on his recent flight to India and back ho says:. : “ ‘ Had there not been a fall over the cliff of 500 ft on tbe other side I really do not think 1 could have averted a terrible crash. Strangely, but truthfully, I eahdi.t; state I was not in the least frightened, and ■ the incident was quite forgotten once over the Channel.’ Tho fine distinction, drawn by him between the two sexes with regard , tq fear iq difficult to midojrsfa«4'tJ~ a ;