AIR SPEED RECORD

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 238, 5 September 1928, Page 7

AIR SPEED RECORD

HELD BY ITALY.

BRITAIN’S ATTEMPT TO LOWER IT.

PREPARATIONS NEARLY COMPLETE.

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.)

Received September 5, 11.15 a.m. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Sept. 4.

Preparations for tho British attempt to heat the world’s air speed record of 318 miles per hour, set up by the Italian, Major Do Bernardi, are nearly complete. The attempt will be made at Calshot by Flight-Lieutenant Darcy Greig in about three weeks’ time over a course along which Flight-Lieutenant Kinkead was flying when lie was killed in an attempt to break the record last year. Flight-Lieutenant Greig is carrying out an exhaustive test with a supermarine Napier S 5 seaplane, which is to make tho flight. The machine is of the same type as that used by Flight-Lieu-tenant Webster when he won the Schneider trophy last year, and was actually taken to Venice with other British ’planes as tho reserve for the race.

The aeroplane has, in the language ol the Royal Air Force, been “cleaned up’’ with a view to increasing its maximum speed. A speed of 317 miles per hour lias been reached during an official test, and it is hoped that a maximum speed of between 325 and 330 miles will be reached.