FLIGHT RECORD BID

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 4 May 1931, Page 6

FLIGHT RECORD BID

RETURN TRIP TO AUSTRALIA. QUEST OF STACK AND CHAPLIN. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) LONDON, May 2 Captain Neville Stack and Air .T. R* Chaplin . left Lympnc at 4.22 a.m. ia a Vickers Napier bomber plane and arrived at Yeshilkcnv aerodrome, Constantinople, in record time. They start for Baghdad at dawn. Captain Stack called at Vienna en route to Constantinople. This was his third attempt on liis projected dasli to Australia and back in 21 days. He left Lympnc on Wednesday, blit was foiced to return owing to bad weather in France. He made a second start on Friday, but returned 20 minutes later with engine trouble.

HOLDER OF SEVERAL RECORDS,

With a Vickers Napier bomber converted as a mail-carrier, capable of 150 miles an hour, the aviators carry mails, and hope to spend one day of the double trip at Darwin. A fortnight ago the two airmen flew from London to Berlin and back in one day. This was a record, the distance of 1250 miles being covered in 10 hours 2S minutes. Captain Stack recently made a record flight from London to Delhi in a Moth plane in four days, being accompanied bv Air Bernard S. Loetc in a similar machine. On that occasion three world’s records were established —a long distance light machine flight, a flight overseas without any flotation gear, and an unescorted flight across the famous airmail route between Cairo and Bagdad. Captain Stack’s career began at 16, when his father, the editor of a financial paper, placed him on the staff. However, journalism did not appeal to him, so in' 1913 he apprenticed himself to a motor engineer, and when the Great War broke out went to France as a motor-cyclist dispatch rider. Two years later he joined the R.F.C., in which lie did some raiding work, but was chiefly engaged as flying instructor.

On being demobilised he became chief instructor and test pilot to the London and Provincial Aviation ComIpany. Returning to the service he was posted to Mesopotamia, where lie became pilot on the desert route botveen Cairo and Bagdad, and did much obseivation work, bombing and troop-carrj’-ing. Then he left the service and became chief instructor to the Lancashire Aero Club, and had the gratification of seeing many of his pupils' successful in winnig races and landing competitions, while lie himself won the Yorkshire Air Handicap, one of the chief events in the North of England. Mr Chaplin, who was aide-de-camp to Viscount Byng when lie was GovernorGeneral of Canada, comes of a wealthy Vancouver family. In an interview before he left on Wednesday, Captain Stack said: “Commander Glen Kidston lias shown tlicj Post Office how the air-mail services to South Africa may be improved. We hope to point, the same lesson, and even to go a stage further. We may heat Mr C. W. Scott’s magnificent record for the outward flight, but it is not our object. “Our motive really is to demonstrate the urgent necessity for a regular, fast service to the eastern portions of tlie Empire. ’ ’

CAPETOWN TO CROYDON f QUEST OF TOMMY ROSE. RUGBY, May 1. Tommy ..Rose, who left Capetown early to-day nr an effort to break the record flight, to Croydon, reached Bulawayo this, afternoon.