“PROFESSOR’S” FLIGHT

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 October 1931, Page 2

“PROFESSOR’S” FLIGHT

CRASH THAT DID NOT COME. CLEVELAND, September 5. A man understood to be an Oxford professor, who had never flown an aeroplane before, created amazement and consternation here to-day by taking up a biplane during the national air races. Dressed in a tail coat and wearing a silk hat, ho went up to Casey Jones, a veteran New'York airman, and invited him to be'his passenger. But when the professor admitted that he had never been near an aeroplane before, but had worked out a theory of flight which he was anxious to test, the veteran fainted and was carried off the field. Nothing daunted, the professor

hung his umbrella on to the wing of the ’plane and started off. He bounced along the ground, scraping one wing after the other, to the horror of the crowd, who expected him to crash at any moment. The professor, however, eventually succeeded in coming down with only a frightful jolt. It was then revealed that he was really Flying Officer Atcherley, the former British Schneider Trophy pilot, and that Casey Jones’s “faint” was part of a most successful rag.