RECORD FIRST “LEG" IN AUSTRALIAN FLIGHT

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6541, 4 May 1931, Page 7

RECORD FIRST “LEG" IN AUSTRALIAN FLIGHT

Stack and Chaplin on the Way

TO DEMONSTRATE FAST MAIL .SERVICE

United Press Association. —By Electric Tfilegraph.—Copyright. [Received Sunday, 7 p.m. LONDON, May 2. The airmen Stack and Chaplin who are attempting a record flight to Australia, left Lympnc at 4.22 a.m. on Saturday. Received Sunday, 9.20 p.m. CONSTANTINOPLE, May 2. Stack and Chaplin arrived atYeshilkeuy aerodrome in record time. They start for Bagdad at dawn.

Captain Neville Stack, with Mr. J. R. Chaplin, in an open two-seater, who left Lympne airdrome at daybreak on Saturday are endeavouring to fly to Australia and back in 21 days.

Captain Stack is flying in a Vickers “Napier” machine capable of 125 miles hourly, a mail-carrier, to demonstrate the possibility o fmaking an air-mail journey to Australia in 10f days, and be back in London in 21 days, flying from dawn till dusk.

Interviewed, Captain Stack said: “Commander Glen Kidston has shown the Post Office how air mail services to South Africa can be improved; we hope to point out the same lesson, and even go a stage further and beat Mr. C. W. Scott’s magnificent record for the outward flight. That, however, is not our object. Our motive really is to demonstrate the urgent necessity of a regular fast service to the eastern portions of the Empire. It is useless to use comparatively slow machines for mails. It is possible to run a regular mail service to Australia in 10 days, instead of tho present 15 days of the experimental schedule. What a single machine can accomplish relays of men and machines can outdo easily.”

Mr. Chaplin was aide-de-camp to Lord Byng when he was Governor-General of Canada. Ho comes from a millionaire Vancouver family.

Kingsford Smith in Burma Received Sunday. 9.20 p.m. RANGOON, May 2. Kingsford Smith with the Australian air mail arrived from Alorstar and is leaving for Akyab to-morrow. Smithy Delivers the Goods Received Monday, 1.0 a.m. AKYAB, May 3. The Southern Cross arrived and transferred the Australia-England mail to the City of Karachi, which left for Calcutta. Strapped Into Overturned Aeroplane AIRMEN’S ESCAPE FROM DROWNING. Received Sunday 5.5 p.m. SYDNEY, May 3. While a Moth aeroplane was searching Botany Bay for the body of a boy drowned through the overturning of a canoe the plane hit the water and turned upsidedown. The pilot 0. H. Lodge and a member of tho Aero Club strapped to their seats were in danger of drowning, but managed to free themselves aud were rescued by a fishing launch.