RECORD BEATEN

Evening Star, Issue 20943, 6 November 1931, Page 9

RECORD BEATEN

MISS PEGGY SALAMAN'S FLIGHT ARRIVAL AT CAPE TOWN Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. CAPE TOWN, November 5. Miss Peggy Salaman, the ninetecn-yoar-o!d English girl, landed early this morning in her De Haviland Puss Moth, one day one hour 23min ahead of the late Cbmmander Glen Kidston’s record. She left Lympne at 11 p.m. on Friday and shared the actual piloting of sixty-four hours with the navigator, Douglass Store, a young man from Kimberley. ’Replying to the mayor’s congratulations Peggy said: “It has been so thrilling that I don’t know whether I am on my head or my heels. I have not had much experience, but I want to show what English girls can do.” After the flyers left Juba they were forced to descend in the jungle owing to darkness. They got clear in the morning by breaking trees with revolver shots. At Juba Peggy “ adopted ” two lion cubs. PERILOUS MOMENTS CAPE TOWN, November 5. (Received November 6, at 11 a.m.) Miss Salaman states that she bad only twenty hours’ sleep. All the time she endured a terrible strain. On the third day they flew 1,275 miles over the Sudan swamp country. She got a terrible shock when she woke up and found Store circling and looking for a path. Only seventeen gallons of petrol were left, and down below there was wild country. The petrol dropped to six gallons. They suddenly found a path outside Juba. Only a few drops of petrol were then left. They were advised not to spend the night at Juba, as leopards visited the aerodrome. Miss Salaman says she got two lion cubs, which she is offering to Princess Elizabeth. She slept with the cubs on her lap and her head on the tank. She intends to return by steamer to Marseilles, and then fly solo to London. Store is emphatic that Miss Salaman did her full share of the flying. STORE’S TRIBUTE (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 5. (Received November 6, at noon.) Miss Salaman said the flight had not been a strain, and when she had had a bath she would be willing to do it again. In an interview Store said: “ This certainly is Miss Salaman’s trip. She definitely took the weight of the flying. My job was chiefly navigating. 1 want to give Miss Salaman full credit for all she has done.” Tho actual flying time was sixty-four hours. The pilots took charge of tho machine in turns. The aeroplane is called tho Good Hope. It is an ordinary standard British Puss Moth machine, cost £I,OOO, and was given to Miss Salaman by her mother as a birthday present. Mr J. A. Mollison, who holds the record for the flight from Australia to England, intends to leave Lympne on a flight to the Cape, in an attempt to beat Miss Salaman’s record.