AUSTRALIAN AIRMAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 3, 3 December 1931, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN AIRMAN.

HINKLER AT MOROCCAN PORT

MONKEY AS COMPANION

Received December 3, 9.25 a.m. RABAT, Dec. 2. Mr Bert Hinkler, the Australian airman, has arrived here. The first monkey to cross the Atlantic by air is Mr Hinkler’s tiny femalo pet. ' It was presented to the airman in Brazil, and the Australian was so fond of his acquisition that he decided it should share his fame. The monkey sat alongside the airman throughout the journey. Mr Hinkler landed here amid tremendous enthusiasm. He is building a special amphibian ’plane for a flight across the Pacific. WEST-TO-EAST ACHIEVEMENT. Mr Hinkler’s recent famous flight is the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic from America to Africa, although several flights have been made in the reverse direction. , , In 1927 the Frenchmen, Captain Dieudonne Costes and Lieutenant Joseph Le Brix, flew from Senegal (Africa) to Natal (South America). Later in the same year the Italians, Farrarin and Delprete, repeated the performance, though they landed in another part of Brazil. In 1929 the Spaniards, Captain Ignacio Jiminez and Captain Inglesias, crossed from Cape Blanco to Baliia. The Aeropostale, the great French air line, and the longest airway in the world, is operating between Toulouse (France) and Santiago, Chile, with a steamer-bridged gap between Africa and South America. 11l 1930 M. Jean Momtez, with two companions, bridged this gap between the two continents, carrying mail in an experimental flight. The party set out on the return trip, but came down 350 miles from Dakar, their goal, because of a broken feed-pipe. That mishap robbed them of the honour which is now Mr Hinkler’s.

Mr Hinkler is not only a very clever pilot and a first-class mechanic, but also a navigator of remarkable skill, with an uncanny power of finding his way over unknown country and through the worst weather. He is also an inventor, and designed the special undercarriage which has been adopted as the standard for all Avians. One of his earlier flights was an attempt, with Captain Mclntosh, in 1927, to fly non-stop to India, but the airmen had to come down in Poland.