WINDY WELLINGTON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16508, 25 March 1914, Page 10

WINDY WELLINGTON.

DISAPPOINTED AVIATOR AND CROWD. EXTRAORDINARY WEATHER VAGARIES. [From Our Corresl'ondkst.] WELLINGTON, March 24. Wellington is still waiting for tho aerial flight promised by Mr Scotland in the Caudron biplane, and several thousand people are carrying around his tiny promissory notes in the shapo of admission tickets purchased fruitlessly on Saturday afternoon. The young New Zealand aviator has had tho hardest of luck over tho weather here. It was much too gusty for his machine on Saturday, but, as the wind often dies down at five o'clock, it was hoped that the big crowd would not be disappointed. To the credit of Wellingtonians, they willingly paid their shillings and iiorins, comparatively few choosing points of vantage which cost nothing. However, when the flight was abandoned, and nobody knew what would bo done over the admission money, a section of the crowd, surging curiously around the biplane, became particularly offensive. Mr T. M. Wilford, who-was present, sizing up the situation, jumped upon a benzine case and exhorted tho people to remain calm. He said that Mr Scotland was a young New Zcalandcr, only twenty-two years of age, and that tho machine was practically all ho had got. It would not be a. fair thing to ask him to go up in such weather. He (Mr Wilford) had seen a good many flying exhibitions in Paris, the home of flying, and had paid his ten francs to witness Vedrines, the intrer)id French aviator. On that occasion Vedrines had a wind of about thirty-five miles an hour blowing, about the same as what they were experiencing that afternoon. Vedrines declined to fly, and ho had n 140 h.p. machine, which was a far more powerful one than Mr Scotland's. He proposed that if they kept <juiet and did no damage to the machine lie would confer with tho management to sec what could be done. He would undertake to promise them something they had not had for some time, a square deal. (Laughter and cheers.) An arrangement for the is.sue of admission tickets to the first flight satisfied nearly everybody. Sunday morning was perfect for flying, but Mr Scotland's business controllers barred flights till the ticket-holders could be there to see. Monday morning was also ideal and the flight was advertised for the afternoon. Unfortunately at noon a breeze began to blow ominously from the south, and away out over the sea the black bank of cloud gathered which is always reckoned a sure sign of a southerly.' The wind increased all the afternoon, and soon was blowing well over twenty miles an. hour, a safe limit for exhibition aviation over a city. At four o'clock the clouds were scurrying darkly along a threatening sky, and the wind in the higher levels as recorded at tho wireless station was rising up to thirty-eight miles an hour in gusts. The Government Meteorologist was pessimistic as to any further chance of a flicht. About five o'clock the sombre clouds broke into rain, which lasted on and off all night. This morning the wind was still strone, and at 2.30 this afternoon it was blowing gustily from twenty to thirty miles per hour. Matters did not improve, and Mr Scotland advertises his last Wellington appearance to-mor-row.