FLIGHT TO ENGLAND

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6804, 7 January 1929, Page 4

FLIGHT TO ENGLAND

HUNDREDS WANTED TO GO CAPTAIN HURLEY'S TROUBLES Everyone wants to go! I meet them in the street, in the lift, some even waiting for the office door to open. Everywhere the hopeless question: “Any chance of a passage in your ’plane?” This was how Captain Frank Hurley, who, with Flying-Officer Moir, recently hopped off on a flight from Australia to England, described the keenness of the Sydney people to fly to England. Each mail brings a host of applications, he continued, which read as if no flight could possibly be successful without the inclusion of the writers! The phone tinkles vexatiously—and more irksome inquiries. “Sorry to call you up at midnight, old man, but I was wondering whether ... 1 “You’re the nine hundred and ninety-ninth! No! We have no room for passengers.” “Well —I’m the odd one. I wouldn’t fly for thousands; I am just ringing up to see if you want to take out a life policy!” While it is gratifying to feel that enterprising insurance agents are exhibiting such keen concern for our lives, it is equally cheering to observe the violent interest various proprietaries are taking in our healths. Patent medicines, restoratives, and tonics! V.'hy, one would imagine that we were about to hop off into an atmosphere charged with a seething inferno of virulent microbes, from which only the miraculous virtues of these specific concoctions can save us.

Yesterday morning, through tho mail, came the 13th medical outfit! It does look as if the kind givers are predicting a good crashing future for us. And amulets, charms, and mascots!— Medals, homerangs, black cats! “Satanic?" I’m glad to say they are more than ample to offset the gloomy forebodings of insurance men, “medicine” men, and those numerous well-wishers who have written to dissuade, me from “The Satanic pursuit of transgressing in those ethereal realms set apart for spirits.” To seek immunity from such irreverence —another reason why we have called our machine The Spirit of AusWhile we want to uphold “The Spirit” as far as our machine will permit, those who have relatives and friends in the Motherland will. I am sure, realise that we cannot carry an endless profusion of half-ounce loving messages to dear ones. Our mail bags are closed, and only those letters containing cheques made payable to The Spirit of Australia will be welcomed with open arms. But those who want to go. Those who are irresistibly drawn by the impulses of hig«x adventure —in its most exalted altitude. Those who see in any . adventurous undertaking the pebble of opportunity that may bump them from the eternal groove of routine. Here Is an application from a tramdriver. States he has been trying to get out of the rut all his life. Did lx by jumping the points some time ago, lost his job, and now wants tp take to the air—where he fondly imagines there are no ruts! Wants to Darn? A dear old dame evidently imagines us to be two “flighty young fellows with unclipped wings” and wants to become a member of the crew “to chaperone and to darn.” We reluctantly turned down this application owing to the fact that we are flying light and in our clothes “all standing.” If any holes do appear we will paint our skins to match. Another super-optimist wants to fly to England because he has not tho “wherewithal” to pay his steamer passage! • And a sweet young thing has forwarded a motion picture scenario—a wild flight of imaginationengulfing herself and the pilot. Her portrait came with a touching letter. We examined it, and came to the conclusion that the heroine was no star for our firmament. A tiny tot sent a letter addressed to her “Dear Daddy Christmas up in heaven." We are carrying it, but hope that we will not be its deliverers—at present. The widespread interest and wellwishes for the forthcoming project we sincerely appreciate, but if we were to carry the hosts of letters, mascots, medicines consigned to us and accepted applications from all those who want to go—our ship would resemble some monstrous flying centipede of gliders wagging its way through the clouds, with fortune bearing great bundles of charms and mascots preceding us, and a post office with wings tacked on behind.