A FOOLHARDY FLIGHT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 306, 23 November 1934, Page 6

A FOOLHARDY FLIGHT.

Congratulations will be extended to Flying-Officer Whitehead and to Mr R. Niclioll on their successful crossing of the Tasman Sea by air yesterday. Their arrival early this morning- at Mangere from the Ninety Mile Beach, wdiere they landed. shortly before darkness last evening, relieved the fears that had been expressed during the evening for their safety. Theirs is the thirteenth successful crossing of the Tasman Sea and the fourteenth attempt that has been made, and when they were not reported last evening people might very well have been pardoned for thinking that they had met the fate of Messrs Hood and Moncrieff. For the flight was in its very nature a foolhardy one. Their machine, a rather old Puss Moth, is not a suitable type. Moreover, it is described as the oldest Puss Moth in Australia and contains its original engine. It has been secretly reconditioned by the airmen, and to provide for extra petrol tank space both had to suffer undoubted inconvenience on the journey across the expanse of ocean in sharing a tiny cockpit. Furthermore, they left Australia without either a certificate of registration or one of airworthiness, both having been cancelled on the Department of Aviation in Australia learning of the proposed flight. Their navigation instruments were but the barest, and their machine did not carry wireless. In all the circumstances the two pilots may be deemed to have been most fortunate in their enterprise. The transtasman flights of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, Mr C. T. Ulm, and the recent crossing by Messrs Hewett and Kay are a definite contribution to the cause of aviation between Australia and New Zealand; those. of Mr Guy Menzies, who early in 1931 crossed in an Avro Avian machine to land south of Hokitika, and of Messrs Whitehead and Nicholl are purely adventurous, in which there is a gamble with fate. They do nothing to advance the interests of flying, for it is only under the most favourable of circumstances that these light machines can make the journey in safety, and are not therefore of practical utility for flying long distances over the sea. The circumstances of the flight also suggest that the time has arrived when stricter precautions should be taken by the authorities to prevent the use of machines not deemed airworthy. The latest crossing has ended in safety, had it resulted otherwise it would have been sincerely deplored. Flying now should be for a definitely useful purpose; the days of crazy adventure should be past.