WHAT ABOUT THE AIR RACE? TASMAN FLIGHT: BRADSHAW A “VERY DETERMINED MAN”

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 June 1950, Page 5

WHAT ABOUT THE AIR RACE? TASMAN FLIGHT: BRADSHAW A “VERY DETERMINED MAN”

WELLINGTON, This Day (0.C.). —“Short of actual physical prevention—as of the impounding of his plane—l don’t think Arthur Bradshaw will be crossing the Tasman by boat,” said one of his war-time and close personal friends to a reporter, j “His experience is beyond any question. He has flown the world time and again, in Transport Command and with British and foreign airlines; His judgment was considered good enough for his selection to fly world figures and V.l.P.’s over the Atlantic in the war years—in large aircraft, certainly. ‘First-class Navigator “He holds the England-New Zealand time record. He is a first-class navigator, and his Proctor has the very last words in navigational and communication aids, that is, for a light aircraft, though, of course, his equipment has not the range of the equipment carried by large aircraft. “Moreover,” he continued, “he has already flown over jungle and water crossings on this flight from England every bit as hazardous as the Tasman. “And Bradshaw, who has had far too much experience of the necessity of complying with clearance facilities to set out on the blind, carries a. clearance from the highest aviation authorities in England for ■ the full distance to New Zealand.

“A most interesting point will arise if the civil aviation authorities, in New Zealand and Australia stop Bradshaw, a most widely experienced airman, and the very reverse of a hare-brained young pilot. “It is that if his single-engined plane is blocked over -the shortest Tasman crossing, then what of the air race to. Christchurch —a much greater distance and, involving, as it will, a crossing of the Southern Alps? “Is it going to mean that single - .engined aircraft will be barred from

an aviation event of world-wide interest? Or are sport and publicity stunts in a different category? Or is it that an air race is something you bet on?” Earlier Flights Recalled There have been quite a number of single-engined plane crossings of the Tasman —Menzies, Chichester, O’Hara, Jean Batten, Clark, Hewett and Kay, Whitehead and Nicholl, and Newton, either direct or with island stops, but Bradshaw is the first to propose a Hobart-Invercargill crossing. Whitehead and Nicholl simply defied authority, to the point of taking off in an unregistered aircraft, with no certificate of airworthiness, with insufficient documents, and with a fine overload of fuel to top off their high adventure. They risked a £2OO fine or six months’ hard, but _ got away with it, the Bench advising “others had better not try it!” Harry Newton, the last solo flyer (October 9,1947), came over in a tiny Ercoupe sports monoplane, all the way from Belgium behind a mere 75 horsepower. Newton, too, found the Australian aviation authorities very sticky about his flight, but they finally gave reluctant permission, on condition that he made a stop at Norfolk. All was well, and using Mr Walter Nash, speaking like a “son of a gun” in the House and broadcast by 2YA, to home on while far out over the Tasman, and later the normal direction finding beam, Newton landed at Whenuapai.

WEATHER MAY DELAY TASMAN FLIGHT BRISBANE, June 23.—Cyclones off the eastern coast of Australia are ex-, pected to prevent Captain A. J. Bradshaw from making his solo flight to New Zealand this week-end; ..