FLYING Sure CURE for "NERVES"

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6851, 5 March 1929, Page 4

FLYING Sure CURE for "NERVES"

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HD VENTURESOME and studded with varied interests has been the life of Lady Heath, the famous woman flyer, who has crowded much into the fairly short span of 31 years. Lady Heath established the lightplane altitude record of 24,700 feet and made an 11,000-mile solo flight from Capetown, across Africa’s jungles, to England. She is the third wife of Sir James Heath, aged 75. The British airwoman is a delegate to the International Aviation Conference in Washington, and will remain in the United States about six months. She Is representing the Air League of the British Empire, and is chairwoman of the women’s section. On her arrival in New York she told an interviewer many interesting things about her life and about her flying.

“America is far in advance of England in many ways aerial, especially yrith regard to its air-mail lines," she said, as she discussed the relative progress in aviation’ of this country and Great Britain. “The whole world Is watching what you do in aviation. But your wonderful air-mail routes in particular are attracting the attention of other countries, and that is the chief thing we know about American flying. America certainly excels there, while Holland and Germany are famous for their national transport systems, and England for lightairplane development and use. I am primarily interested in commercial aviation, and I am over here to learn what you can teach me; and, in return for any new knowledge I acquire, % want to let American women know more about flying as a profession, so that more of them may have the intense pleasure I have experienced in the air, “America has been so wonderful in capturing the light-car market of the world that if it wants to it can go out and establish the greatest light-air. plane market of the world, too, a market which has been created by

Great Britain which, so far, excels in this particular branch of aviation. American methods of mass production are so well known by all the countries of the world that everyone is looking to America to bring aviation down to the ordinary level of everyday things; in other words, to help make flying ‘safe for democracy.’ “Another thing the light airplane will accomplish is to make women flyers stand on the same footing as men, both in learning to fly and in flying afterward. One thing women will have to realise, and that is that if they are going to fly at all they will have to take up flying seriously, and not just play at it. This is a business, a sport, a recreation —whatever* you choose to term it—which does not permit of dilettantism. If women will only give to it the same concentrated, determined, serious attention that men do, they will accomplish wonders in aviation. For there is no reason why women should not be as successful as men in this field. “Woman’s delicacy of touch is a very essential factor in aviation, in handling the controls and so forth. 1 am not, for the moment, advocating that women should give up everything for aviation. It is my firm belief that woman’s place is in the home. But, unfortunately, some women are forced out of the home, their proper environment, and into the labour

market. For such women, commercial aviation will prove at once an interesting profession and at the same time a fascinating sport. Of course, all women are not equipped to be aviators any more than are all men. Besides, all women are not attracted by it. Neither are all men. “But this talk of women’s nerves handicapping them in aviation is all a myth. Highly nervous men—just as is the case with highly nervous women —are unequipped by Nature for flying. Notwithstanding this, flying is not a nerve-racking business, as so many people believe. I have heard many a temperamental woman airplane pilot exclaim: ‘I must get up in the air immediately! I feel stifled.’ “Such women, tense or in a temporarily depressed or nervous mood, need to escape from the confines of the city. They want to get up and away from crowds and congestion and poor air. I know this to be so in my own case. We all have moods at times, and when I am in a dark one, I take to the sky. How can I describe the splendid tonic effect of flying? To be up there, alone, in the air, free and in space, }s like being alone in a vast cathedral. There is something awe-inspiring and solemn about it. To fly is an adventure, and at the same moment a time of spirit renewal and refreshment. At such times I always climb out of my plane when I land feeling rested and soothed.”

All Lady Heath’s efforts in various countries of Europe have been to bring flying to a level which will be within reach of all classes. With this end in view, she has devoted in the last two years her commercial earnings to founding 10 scholarships for women with the light-airplane clubs of Great Britain and South Africa. Much of these earnings have been obtained in air racing, of which Lady Heath is very fond, and in the lightairplane competitions, in which she has been exceedingly lucky. This summer she took first place in the Internationa 1 light-airplane competitions in Holland and fourth place out of 26 competitors in French international competitions.