WOMAN FLYER

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 July 1938, Page 2

WOMAN FLYER

EXCITING EXPERIENCES. SYDNEY, June 24. With her right hand useless after an accident, during her adventurous flight, Miss Barbara Hitchins landed at Kingsford Smith Aerodrome, Mascot, thus completing a 6000-mile journey to New Guinea and back in her Gipsy I. Moth machine. “Now that I am back I have completed what I set out to do,” she said. “I wanted experience, and got plenty in New Guinea. I had more lessons in a few -weeks there than I could get in several years in Australia.” At Lae, Miss Hitchins' right hand was struck with the propeller. “My fingers were just hanging on by the skin,” she said. “I have lost the use of my index finger, and it will have to be broken again and reset. Because of this I had to learn to fly with my left hand. ; “I don’t want people to make allowances for me as a pilot simply because I am a woman,” she said. In spite of the handicap of her useless right hand, Miss Hitchins made a perfect landing at Mascot, and hei skill in piloting a Moth ’plane, which normally required the free use of both hands, was highly praised by Sydney airmen. Miss Hitchins had a hazardous experience when she took oil from the notoriously bad aerodrome at Somerset; at. the head of the Cape York Peninsula, where, because of the small ground, and the direction of the wind, she had to take off over a precipice. Her machine ran to the edge of a DO foot cliff, and when only about G feet from the surface of the ocean, it gained momentum to begin level flight. “I have had adventure— plenty 01. it,” she said. “But it has been a reallv worthwhile experience. ‘“I went to New Guinea to gain experience of flying conditions there—the aerodromes with one means of ingress and 1 egress, the hazardous mountains and jungles, and the adverse weather conditions. I did not. expect, to. have the forced landing I had or to be forced 200 mile's off my course ami he lost as I was at Madang, or to break my hand at Wau—-but 1 have loved every one of the 130 hours flying since I left Sydney in January.” Miss' Hitchins was dogged with illluck throughout the flight. She left Mascot on January 21 with a passenger for Papua, and ran into bad weather after leaving Brisbane'. On Februarv 2 she experienced a. forced landing at Kerema. On February 18, while living from Kerema. (Papua) to Wau (New Guinea) she flew 200' miles off her course, and was lost in the jungle for three days. She was without food or water for 50 hours. After making a forced landing, she had cleared and burned a runway in the hop'e of being able to take off, but the ’plane hit a .stump and turned over She was 1 rescued by Pilot John Todd after she had given up all hope of being found. . This was Mis's Hitchins first lon., flight. She has been flying only IS month's', and 1 is considered an accomplished pilot. She hopes to write a book on her experiences during the flight.