Manawatu Daily Times Stunting or Exploring?

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6542, 25 February 1928, Page 8

Manawatu Daily Times Stunting or Exploring?

Bert Hinkler’s great flight in the tiny Avro-Avian from England to Australia in sixteen days will revive the controversy which had been raging in Australia concerning stunt flying. After the tragic termination of the Tasman flight the Commonwealth authorities refused to sanction another attempt by Captain Moody, and a very warn argument ensued in which quite a number of prominent people took part. The Commonwealth Minister of Customs, Mr. Prattcn) referred to it as a hair-brained adventure and remarked:— “ I think there is a good deal of stunting in connection with these flights. The uncompromising attitude of the Federal authorities was made plainer by the Director of Civil Aviation, who stated:- “ The attitude of the Ministry toward the proposed flight has already been clearly expressed, and I have indicated to Messrs. Moody and Jolley that no departmental facilities would be placed at the disposal of any person who proposed organize a long overseas flight in airplanes designed specifically for land flying. Knowing the particular machine which Messrs. Moody and Jolley propose to use is intended for this purpose, the authorities will not recognize it in any manner whatever. The use of the Government aerodromes for the proposed flight has been refused.” To this and the equally hostile attitude of the president of the Australian Aero Club, a spirited reply was made by a New Zealander now settled in Sydney, Mr. Frank Goldberg, who undertook the commercial organization of the flight. He declared that the word “ stunt ” was “an unmitigated misnomer.” Would the president of the Aero Club, Mr. Hughes, say that Columbus, Raleigh, and Drake were “ stunting ” ? Would he say that Captain Cook’s adventure was a “ stunt ” ? Yet these world heroes took far greater risks, and with infinitely less preliminary safeguards, than any pioneers of flight. The ascent, in recent years, of Mount Everest had no definite purpose beyond the invincible British determination that the mountain should be conquered. Science could gain nothing from the ascent—yet beyond a shadow of doubt Mr. Hughes was among those who rightly acclaimed the heroic climb as a wonderful and praiseworthy performance. Had Mr. Hughes forgotten Captain Matthew Flinder’s, who, with his famous colleague, Bass, adventured forth in an absurdly inadequate 19-footer and added so much to the geographical knowledge of the Australian coast and the Tasman generally that numerous monuments acclaimed him a hero ? ” While this argument was proceeding Hinkler unobtrusively hopped off in his baby machine—it was equipped with an engine of only 28 horse-power, or about that of an ordinary motor-car—and within sixteen days he landed at Port Darwin! Two remarkable features of this “ stunt ” were the speed with which it was accomplished, and the fact that the machine used was but a small Avro Avian ’plane, one that might be housed in a private garage of average size. Hinkler and his friends have good cause to feel elated. The time spent on the journey from Croydon to Australia ■was only sixteen days, or twelve days less than the time occupied by Sir Keith Smith and the late Sir Ross Smith in their pioneer flight. Of course the pessimists declared this to be a stunt flight when the Australian set out on his daring trip to his native land, but it has brilliantly succeeded and he is a national hero. His success will certainly silence the agitation against “stunting,” this'is provided reasonable precautions are taken as they appear to have been in the case of Captain Moody, who is generally regarded as the most experienced airman in Australia.