KING'S CUP RACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22434, 2 June 1936, Page 7

KING'S CUP RACE

BRITISH AVIATION EVENT ENTRY BY DUKE OF KENT [from our own correspondent] By Air Mail LONDON. May 13 Aircraft that will compete in the eliminating contest of the King's Cup race this year will be divided into three classes—the first of a total engine power not exceeding 150 h.p., the second of more than 150 h.p. and the third of multi-engined aeroplanes. The minimum handicap speed in the final round will be l.'il) miles an hour.

Risks of the course adopted last year, which took competitors across open water in the north of England, are eliminated and the first day's flying, on July 10, will take place over two circuits of a course 612 miles in length, starting and finishing at Hatfield, and going by way of Norwich. Nottingham, Bristol. Shoreham and Coventry.

The next day half the starters in each class, with a maximum of 10 in each class, wili compete in the final, which will take the racers over a number of la us of a circuit of not less than 50 miles with an approximate total length of .'550 miles, every lap starting and finishing at Hatfield. The Duke of Kent has again entered this year a Percival Mew Gull light monoplane. Last year the Mew Gull, which carried the Duke's colours, set up a new record for the fastest time made in any King's Cup race, averaging 208.9 miles an hour, but the little machine was heavily handicapped and was only sixth in the placing at the end. Mr. E. W. Percival, Australian-born designer of the Mew Gull, will again be the pilot.