BY AIR

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 201, 25 July 1934, Page 2

BY AIR

ENGLAND TO AUSTRALIA

TALK BY AIISS BATTEN

The preparations she had made for her flight from England to Australia, and how very important was the preparatory organisation, were explained to the Palmerston North Citizens Lunch Club by Aliss Jean Batten, the aviatrix, yesterday. Air W. A. Waters presided and there was an unusually l,arge attendance. Perhaps only a few recognised the real value of organisation in such a flight, said Aliss Batten. She had travelled over 14 different countries. The British Government required a complete schedule of the flight, giving an estimate of the daily progress, so that she could have a landing permit whenever it was required. Fuelling arrangements were of very great importance, and maps had to be procured for the whole journey. If the maps she had used were put end to end they would stretch 70 feet, l>eing, of course, on various scales. lime variations had to be worked out so that she knew how much daylight she had in each day’s journey. A flier lust about an hour in every 1000 miles of flight on that route. The size of each landing ground had to be known, and there had to be preparations made for different kinds of money to pay ior landings in the different countries. That had not been one of the things she had been allowed to overlook, she remarked. In flying over India, continued Aliss Batten* it had been arduous work hand-pumping petrol from a 43-gallon tank to the main tank with one hand as she controlled the machine with the other. Both the fore-cockpit and the luggage locker were used to accommodate extra petrol storage tanks, so her whole wardrobe had to !>e carried in a space 'only ten inches by four. Aluch had to be sacrificed, but, she humorously added, that did not go as far as a powder outfit. She had carried a powder box all the way from London so that she could appear in Sydney “somewhat like the novelist’s idea of an aviatrix.” At times she wondered if the flight was all reallv wortli while. Even the elements seemed to be against her. But when she reached Australia and had such splendid welcomes, and further, when she arrived in New Zealand, she realised that she would have made the flight had the obstacles been twice as great.

Air AI. H, Oram,' as the first president of the Alanawatu Aero Club, said that Aliss Batten, in making the flight, had done something for her country and had made the name of New Zealand known in countries, towns and homes where it had not been known before. We in New Zealand were a long way behind in the development of commercial aviation. Her achievement should aid the development of an air service in New Zealand and should also aid the development of airmindedness in the Dominion. Ho proposed a vote of thanks to Aliss Batten, which was carried with acclamation.

The visitors included the Alayor (Air A. E. Alansford) and Airs Alansford, Squadron-Leader L. AI. Isitt, Mr D. Ardell (Internal Affairs Department), Mr F. Jackson, Air and Airs W. J. Croucher, Airs W. H. Galbraith, All H. E. Edmunds, Air L. AI. Abraham, Air A. E. Kerslake, Airs S. I. Stannard, Air D.'F. Smiilie (Palmerston North), Air A. Sewell (Wanganui), and Air J. Winter (Hawke's Bay).