ROYAL FLYING CORPS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17098, 22 February 1916, Page 10

ROYAL FLYING CORPS.

AN AUCKLANDER'S EXPERIENCES. ' An interesting letter descriptive of the Work of the Flying Corps in England has been received by Mr W. S. Miller, of Auckland, from Lieutenant Ksk Saudi'ord, who is at prevent engaged at the Royal Naval Air Station, Great Yarmouth. England. Lieutenant Sand ford is a young Australian, who gained his . first experience as an aerial pilot in tho course of his experiments at Avo'idale, Auckland, and he now holds a lieutenancy. ,4 h* '■■ " 1 am just keen on flying," he says, "'and am doing O.K. Believe me. Avondalo experience has come in very useful many times. Last Friday 1 had my first accident here with Howard Wright's latest machine. It was,a l>ig 'Wright' seaplane, with a '2'25 Sunbeam engine., and was designed by hin; 1 it had. 60 odd feet span, and was 45ft long, the list price being £3OOO. Most of it. including tlie engine, is on the bottom of the North Sea now. One of the floats got punctured, and she capsized on the water after I bad landed and was ' taxi-ing' back. I was picked up by a minesweeper, very ivet and cold, but none the' worse. •*••*«* ■> w ■ ■•■

"I wish you could see some of our machines. They are all better and faster than the ones I lud at Eastbourne. T have flown a Sopwith scout sea phi uo at 100 knots, about 110 miles an hour, in a calm. 1 also did a sixty-mile cross-country run in thirtythree minutes, doing about seventy miles an hour with a gale behind. The gale averaged forty miles an hour, so you see I am not afraid of a little breeze now. Some of tho chaps here are marvellous fivers, and think nothing at all of vertical banks. At the same time, they are scared of a new machine until it has been well tested. " Flying is a. very different game when you have a lot of chaps doing nothing else with you. and all tho world's best machines and a hundred or two hundred mechanics to d'o all the dirty work for you, and when, you get well nairi for doing it. Some of the professional testers :v,-o making

pats of money. and are probably makiuc £'lo.ooo a year each. T get about £3oo.''