GREAT FLYING CAREER

Evening Star, Issue 20979, 18 December 1931, Page 9

GREAT FLYING CAREER

AIR-COMMODORE KINGSFORD SMITH ‘ PRAISED BY LONDON ‘ TIMES ’ Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, December IG. ‘ The Times,’ in an editorial, says: “ For the second time in a flying career which has made him one of the world’s most famous airmen, Air-commodore Kingsford Smith has come to the rescue of a stranded air mail. His achievement in flying to London in a fortnight makes it certain, apart from accidents and delays duo to weather, that a regular mail service of ten to twelve days between England and Darwin may henceforth be regarded as practicable.” THE RETURN FLIGHT LONDON, December 17* (Received December 18, at 11 a.m.) Kingsford Smith leaves Croydon at 7.30 on Tuesday. His time-table is indefinite, but he hopes to deliver the mails in Sydney and Melbourne on January 4. [After a slight mishap at Darwin the Southern Star, piloted by Kingsford Smith, left Australia on December 3 for Alor Star to pick up the Christmas air mail in the wrecked Southern Sun and take it on to London. Throughout the journey the airman made consistently fast time, keeping close to his schedule. The worst part of his emergency flight, according to cabled reports, was the trip between Karachi and Bushire, on which_ the Southern Star had a long battle with head winds. Last April, when the Imperial Airways liner City of Cairo, bringing the first air mail from London to Australia and New Zealand, crashed at Koepang, Kingsford Smith undertook to make emergency flights in the Southern Cross, first to Koepang and back, and immediately thereafter from Darwin to Akyah with the outward mail for London. Ho accomplished both without a hitch, and demonstrated his resourcefulness and skill. On September 24 Kingsford Smith left Wyndham on an attempted record flight to London in seven and a-half days, or twenty-four hours faster than Scott’s and Mollison’s records. He made a fast journey to Singapore, where he dropped a note to a friend at the air base, saying “ Sorry, can’t stop, am in a real hurry this time ”; hut lie was brought down by darkness- and storm about eighty miles south of Victoria Point, and bad to spend a had night on.a beach fronting the jungle. Later, at Calcutta, he had to land owing to fainting attacks while crossing the Bay of Bengal. On one occasion his aeroplane dropped from 3,000 ft to I,oooft before ho recovered control. Though ill and suffering from headaches, the airman on arrival at Bombay was still half a day ahead of Mollison’s record time. From Bushire to Bagdad Kingsford Smith experienced many difficulties through sandstorms, head winds, and a troublesome oil supply system. While flying over Turkish territory on the way to Aleppo the after-effects of sunstroke forced him down at Milas, where the authorities “ treated him as a suspicious character and detained him ” —long enough to end his hope of achieving a record. He arrived in London on October 7 from Rome, and received a cordial welcome from distinguished flyers. A nerve specialist ordered the airman to return to Australia by steamer and take a three months’ rest from flying. On arrival at Melbourne on November 20 an Air Force doctor examined Kingsford Smith, and expressed the opinion that the airman’s illness on his Aus-tralia-England flight was duo to car-bon-monoxide fumes deflected from the aeroplane’s exhaust into the cockpit.]