A LONE FLIGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20867, 8 May 1931, Page 16

A LONE FLIGHT.

WOMAN PILOT'S EXPLOIT. Many important people in British aviation. including several women pilots, greeted Mrs. / Victor Bruce at Croydon . aerodrome recently, when she returned yo London at the close of a world tour bv air and sea which began nearly five months. before. Piloting the Bluebird light aeroplane which carried her nearly 20.000 miles, Mrs. Bruce (lew the last H.ige of her long journey from Lvnipne, on the Kentish toast, where she landed the day before, escorted by a triumphal " squadron" of private fliers, among whom were Miss Winifred Spooner and Miss Amy Johnson. Mrs. Bruce flew ; on 47 days, meeting all kinds of weather and traversing *ome of tho most difficult flying country in the world. Whep she left England her total tfying experience barely totalled forty hours, and her entire knowledge of air navigation comprised facts learned in five lessons. That she succeeded, with this kinall equipment of experience and knowledge, in making her way safely across the world, is striking proof of the trustworthiness and. inherent simplicity of the modern light aeroplane. She was obliged by impossible weather conditions to land on two or three occasions, and once or twice ishe lost her way, but her invariable safe arrival and the success of a most ambitious project relegates these incidents to a place of minor importance. Looking back over her journey, Mrs. Bruce expressed the opinion that tho (worst stage was that across the dense , forests of Siam, where for mile after mile there was no place where a forced landing might bo accomplished in safety. Her machine, the .Blackburn "Bluebird," is an all-motal light biplane normally fitted {with two soats placed side by side instead of the more usual tandem arrangement." It i 3 fitted with a Gipsy 11. airtooled four-cylinder motor of 120 h.p.