CENTENARY AIR RACE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 48, 25 January 1934, Page 7

CENTENARY AIR RACE.

CLYDE PANGBORN’S PLANS. ...NEW YORK, Jan. 23. Clyde Pangborn, the transpacific flyer, stated to-night that it is fairly certain he will be entering the Lon-don-Melbourne race. He is making a definite decision after testing a new monoplane, the Flying ' Wing, designed by Clair Vance, a noted speed pilot. The ’plane is estimated to have a cruising speed of approximately 200 miles an hour and a cruising radius of 2000 miles. “My tentative plans call for a copilot,” he said. “We would fly night and day, stopping only for fuel. I estimate we could complete the trip within 50 hours.” James Haizlip, at Marianna, Florida, stated that he had no definite plans yet, but expected to reach a decision within 'a month.

Clyde E. Pangborn cam© to fame in 1931, when he and Hugh Herndon, junr., made a world flight in which they accomplished . the first non-stop crossing of the Pacific from Japan to the United States, in the Lockheed Vega ’plane Miss Veedol. He joined the American Air Force in 1917, when a student of the University of Idaho, and took his aeronautical training in patriotic feelings, realising the harming commissioned, he was an instructor in Houston, and on receiving his discharge from the army he undertook “barnstorming” tours for many, years, later doing odd jobs as a' test pilot. For the past few years he has specialised in blind flying. \ ,