RECORD FLIGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22269, 18 November 1935, Page 8

RECORD FLIGHT

V.; TO AUSTRALIA BKO&DSENT'S ORDEAL ;f?' M ! WAS SCARED STIFF" gapiM '<i:i ■■ ?' . BATTLE WITH THE MONSOONS _ frROM OUR OWN COBiIKSPONDENTj SYDNEY, Nov. 13 Looking at Sydney's most recent recruit to the world's Hying " aces, H. F. Broadbent, even a keen obsorvcr would never link bim with a series of mighty aviation deeds. Oue would think, perhaps, that the limit of his endurance would be a three-set tennis match, or a coup!? of hundred yards' swim through the surf. He is of thin build and barely of medium height. li© Airs proved tduifc> fts tin uinn&nj ' he is capable of amazing endurance. Broadbent has performed great feats in Australia, notably his 10,000 miles' flight, round the continent earlier this year in less than four days. Now he has written his name on the scroll of international fame by breaking Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's solo record from England to .Australia by seven and a-half hours. The journey was accomplished in a Percival Gull aeroplane in six days 21 hours 14 minutes. He arrived at Darwin last. Saturday afternoon, utterly exhausted, his face unshaven . and lined, confessing that he had suffered •'/- the fright of his life, and pledging himself never to attempt another record flight. His face told the story of his terrific fight against tropical disturbances between .Rangoon and Darwin—the same storms and the same stage that have apparently pro% ed A barrier, to Kingsford Smith. "A Senseless Ambition" ' X t "Never again!" said Broadbent as he stepped from his machine. It is a senseless ambition, I suppose, for records to-day have short lives; but I'have always wanted to be first to fly solo between England and Australia fe under seven days. I have done it and I am satisfied. But I have nearly killed myself. ! "It was all 1 could do to keep going. I hare been sick and after the fourth day I did not think I could carry on. I 'wrote a cablegram at the end of the fourth day saying I was throwing up the whole business; but when I went to the cable office to lodge it the office was closed. , '/."Next day I had a better run of weather and was cheered up by the petrol supply just holding for a night landing at Rangoon, so 1 tore up the cablegram. 1 havo never been so afraid in all my life as on this flight, rsever again will I fly across long stretches of sea in a single-engined aeroplane. Everyone expected that Broadbent, tired and unnerved, would take hfs time on the journey from Darwin to , Svdney. But not this young man in a hixrry. Loss than nine Hours after N touching Australian soil he had taken again, in moonlight, and had reached Sydney before dusk the same day, accomplishing the longest day 8 journey for a light aeroplane ever done iii Australia. kard to Keep Awake '"And it was the worst day of the *hole flight," said Broadbent. "All the wav I had a 'ding don'g' battle to keep nayselfawake. I gbt so bad that, pinch myself as hard as I could, I really could not hurt myself.'' 4 .Broadbent, who left London with O. J. Melrosfe and flew with him to Singapore, reached Rome on the first day Si' and Athens on the second. He flew through; fog, then heavy snow, to Bagdad on the third day, then through equatorial dust to Karachi on the fourth day, and to Rangoon on the " jly picnic began there,'* he said. 1 "I encountered storms and wind fiercer than 1 have ever conceived. Clouds were black all around me. Suddenlj 1 Would see a break in the walls and „ make for it, leaving my couree and hoping' tb pick it up later. I flew round and through monsoons, backwards and forwards and sideways. I was scared stiff. To make matters. ; worse* I had a new machine, valued at £2OOO, uninsured."