UP IN THE AIR.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume XVIII, 6 October 1931, Page 1

UP IN THE AIR.

WHERE PEOPLE LEARN TO FLY There lies within a few miles of London a new world that none would have believed in four years ago. It is like one of H. G. Well’s dreams of the future, says a writer in the Daily Express. The writer spent some hours in the jun at the week-end at Hanworth Air Park, which had quadrupled its. size in the last two years by the sudden boom in private ownership flying. On a lawn at the edge of the field some ycung women in bright frocks were drinking tea; the rush and roar of the flying moths drowned their talk, but ' hey took no notice, because to them it was just the hum of the traffic. “There is a long row of private “lock-ups” on the other side of the field, where people keep their aeroplanes, just as, four years ago, they garaged their two-seaters. “They mostly belong to business men and women,” said the chief instructor, in a thirsty pause from teaching an endless stream of people to fly. “Many are away first thing Saturday morning to Paris and the seaside for weekend parties. “You know, once people have tried flying, they’d laugh at you if you suggested wasting time by going even as far as Maidenhead by road. The first moment of leisure, it’s up in the air and away!” High up, a couple in a winking aluminium aeroplane were looping the loop, turning and turning slowly, like a leaf falling when there is no wind. “The types of people who take up flying nowadays,” said an instructor, “are more various than you’d believe. I am teaching a rear-admiral and some quite elderly people at present. Also a young typist, who spends all her money and leisure in learning to fly, and pays in instalments. She is going to make a firstclass pilot, too. Three bright machines sweep in on the left of the field as another leaves the hangar on the other side. Strictly as cars on the road, they keep the one-way traffic rule of the air that the Air Ministry has enforced at all aerodromes. The writer adds: “I jolted back to London by road. But for miles I was followed by the hum of a speedier people, and watched the glittering wings of the new generation that knows only the air road to the sea.”