FIRST AIR POST.

Mataura Ensign, 2 November 1911, Page 8

FIRST AIR POST.

19 MILES IN 13 MINUTES. LETTERS FROM THE KING. Some day, many years hence, when letters are regularly carried by aeroplane, there will probably be people alive who will be able to say: "I saw! the first air-postman flying from Lon-| don to Windsor, with the first bag of letters entrusted by the Post Office to an airman, on September the ninth 1911." Undoubtedly the aerial post experi-| ment has touched the popular imagination, and for this reason. It carries the mind into the future. It suggests' the inevitable development of a mode of travel which is still in the infancy stage. There were, therefore, a great many spectators at Hendon on Saturday afternoon to see the start (states the 'Daily Mail' of September 11). There were people looking out for the mail-plane all the way. And at Windsor there would) have been a big crowd on the landing-place if it had not been in the private part of the Royal grounds with admission strictly limited to a few invited guests. In the end, however, these guests gained very little by being on the East Lawn, Tor the one aeroplane which arrived did not land there at all, but in a meadow on the royal farm lower down. It was not until after five o'clock | that the handful of watchers in a cold! | north wind sighted a Bleriot machine hearing down upon the castle. Naturally they were disappointed when it sailed over and dropped some distance away, But Mr Hamel, who took Mr 'Greswell's place as first postman, saw that it would be dangerous to come down on so small a green surrounded by trees, and wisely chose a. safer spot., Airman's Great Speed.

He bad started at live minutes to five, and his official time of arrival was 5.8. He had done the journey of 19 miles, at 105 miles an hour. Mr Rushton, of the surveyors' department, General Post Office, and Mr A. Vard, the Windsor postmaster, received his letter-hag, which contained several communications for the King, and among other curiosities a letter to Mr Asquith from the Suffragettes. A postman cycled off with it, and by halfpast five the delivery had begun. Certain documents relating to the mail were signed and exchanged, photographs were taken, the machine was refreshed with petrol and oil, and just after six o'clock Mr Hamel started back. It was unfortunate that the wind, which at Hendon was blowing thirty miles an hour, delayed the start and prevented other aeroplanes from making the journey. But an air post cannot be expected as yet to behave with the same clockwork regularity as an earth post. At any rate, it got itself started, and to those who scoff at its shortcomings believers in the future of flying can say with confidence, "A day will come." j