THE LOCUST AND THE PLANE

Evening Star, Issue 20990, 2 January 1932, Page 5

THE LOCUST AND THE PLANE

A trifle nearly caused the death of a famous East African airman and his passenger the other day. , Captain Campbell Black was the first man to fly from Nairobi to Croydon in eight days, and this summer he made a world’s record for a Puss Moth machine by flying 1,600 miles in one day. When the Prince of Wales visited East Africa Captain Black was chosen for his pilot. But the best of pilots could not have prevented the accident that forced down his Moth the other day. Engine trouble developed so suddenly and was so acute that a quick landing smashed the propeller. Luckily neither pilot nor passenger was hurt, and the airman hastened to discover the altogether mysterious cause of the accident. The petrol supply had been cut off by a locust in the induction pipe. It was only by a lucky chance that the insect did not kill two people. Hitherto nobody has feared one locust. Men have only been afraid when they came in such swarms that the sun was blotted out and the rustling of their wings was deafening. We have thought that the worst they could do was to strip fields and gardens so as to leave cattle nothing to eat. But now that man has taken to the air even one locust becomes a danger. This grasshopper is more difficult to deal with than a tiger. In one year the people of Cyprus destroyed locust eggs estimated to weigh more than 1,300 tons. The world cannot hope to stamp out the locust completely, although it can fight the great swarms with poison sprays and other devices. We must hope that the designers of aircraft will find some means of preventing solitary locusts from jay walking in petrol pipes.