HOME AGAIN

Evening Star, Issue 21290, 20 December 1932, Page 8

HOME AGAIN

MRS AMY MOiLISON BREAKS RECORD HUGE CROWD AT CROYDON (British Official Wireless.) Pre«* Association—By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, December 19. (Received December 20, at noon.) A huge crowd welcomed Mrs Mollison on her arrival at Croydon. Although she was delayed by exceptionally bad weather, she established a fresh record for the Cape TownLondon journey. Her return journey (6,200 miles) occupied seven days seven hours five mihutes, compared with four days six hours fifty-three minutes on the outward flight. The previous best time for the Cape TownLondon flight was that of the Duchess of Bedford and Captain Barnard, who in 1930 completed the flight in ten days. After landing at Croydon, where she was welcomed on behalf of the Air Ministry and received numerous congratulatory messages, including one from the King and another from the Royal Aeronautical Society, Mrs Mollison proceeded to her home in the West End. She was greeted along the route by cheering crowds. Describing the journey she said the worst experience was the all-night flight before a tornado between Duala and Mossamedes on the way south, when she was blown 100 miles out to sea and had considerable difficulty in fighting her way back to the land. The same part of the flight spelt danger on the way home. She encountered thick clouds, and in order to avoid the 13,000 ft mountains in the neighbourhood, had again to go out to sea, finding the course by flying very low along the coastline. When flying through a valley in the Atlas mountains she struggled against a seventy-five-mile-an-hour wind, and had to proceed crabwise up the Valley in imminent danger of being driven against the rocky sides. She met almost every kind of weather, including snow, during the journey, but showed few signs of fatigue on reaching Croydon. She paid a warm tribute to the Puss Moth machine, the Gypsy engine of which, she said, never misled a revolution.