WOMEN FLIERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21952, 8 November 1934, Page 4

WOMEN FLIERS

There are over 50 qualified German women fliers at the present time, states an overseas writer. Perhaps the best-known of these is Fraulein Elly Beinhorn, whose flights in various parts of the world have won her international fame. She has flown round the world, across the Andes, the Sahara Desert, and the Timor Sea. But, as she recently stated, one of her hitherto unfulfilled desires is to visit the United States. Record-breaking flights do not appeal to her. She has her own ideas of flying—" You can fly round the world in eight days, but to do it properly requires eight years." She does not intend to attempt to fly the Atlantic, but wishes to explore the Mexican hinterland, particularly the seat of the ancient Maya civilisation. Afterward she hopes to fly across the United States and to visit Greenland. Other women who are outstanding are Liesl Bach and Vera von Bissing, whose stunt flights are generally known, and Frau Sophie Thomas, the only woman in the world who holds a captain's certificate as navigator of a small airship. . In gliding, too, women have recently made great strides. They have established their own gliding schools and at the Rhone gliding competitions two years ago, the Mainz-Wiesbaden Woman Gliders' Association had its own group of 1 competitors. Fraulein Hanna Reitsch, who, while taking part in the recent German gliding expedition in South America, established a world record in high gliding for women, recently won another honour. On July 3, she flew in her glider from Griesheim, near Darmstadt to Reutlingen, in Wurtemberg, a distance of 160 kilometers (100 miles), which creates a new long distance record for women gliders.