ADVENTUROUS FLIGHT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 16, 30 December 1932, Page 8

ADVENTUROUS FLIGHT

(‘PACKED WITH NIGHTMARES.” MRS. MOLLISON’S TRIALS. London, Dee. 18. “My flight was packed with nightmares,” declared Mrs Amy Mollison, describing her adventures on the return journey to England from Capetown, in which she broke the previous best time and became holder of the record for the flight out and for the flight home. “My machine, the Desert Cloud,” she said, the most awful conditions in the air and on the ground so superbly that I would go anywhere in x».

“My worst experience, probably, was near Beni Ounif, in Algeria, where the wind rose in spirals. I knew that if they struck the machine I would lose control and be swept to the ground without a chance of surviving. The Atlas Mountains, where the wind was howling and increasing in fury, barred my progress, and I landed miraculously on the emergency ground at Beni Ounif, between two wild spiral gusts. “I leaped out of the aeroplane and managed to cling to a wing while a fierce air eddy enveloped it. Gust after gust struck the light machine, sweeping me from time to time off my feet. I fought for a whole hour to prevent it being blown over. “When a snowstorm burst, I was sure the aeroplane would never weath er the night. Afterwards I found that the mooring wires had cut tbs fuse lage, so fierce was the buffeting Jhf aeroplane’s resistance to the most varied weather conditions is a lasting tribute to its British builders. I could not ‘service’ the machine a s 1 was un able to carry the necessary repair xit “Further heavy gales in Algeria com polled me to return to Oran. Arriving over Paris after a second start, thick fogs forced me to land at Le Bourget and stay the night. “It is frightening to think what my fate would have been if thx engine had failed while 1 was flying for thousands of miles over sandy wastes, jungle and ocean. “My actual flying time homeward was under 60 hours. I consider that the London-Cape flight would take at least, three and a-half days in good weather. “Sleepiness did not trouble me, io contrast with the Australian flight, which was longer, but less intensive. I was so full of black coffee and caffein that I could not rest when the oppor tunity pffered.’f