ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF DEBT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23748, 30 August 1940, Page 8

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF DEBT

At n time when Blenheim bombers and Hurricane and Spitfire fighters figure in Air Ministry communiques every day of the week', we owe, as a matter of decency (an aviator friend suggests.to me), some acknowledgment to two personages whose initiative and liberality did more, than anything else to make our principal bombers and our principal'fightersi what they are, writes "Janus" in the Spectator. One is Lord Rothermere, the other that strange woman, the late Lady Houston.'The last Schneider Trophy race was flown, I behove, in 1931. There would have, been no British entry then but for Lady Houston, who, when the British Government decided not to find money for aircraft and engines capable of keeping Britain in the van, made herself responsible for the total cost of the race—estimated at about £250,000. The result was the production by the Rolls-Royce firm of an engine that was the direct prototype of the Merlin engine which gives all our foremost types of fighters their predominance to-day. What Lord Rothermiere did was to commission the Bristol Aeroplane' Company to produce a commercial aeroplane of outstanding performance'as a demonstration to the Air Ministry of what could be done. The direct* descendant of that machine is the Bristol-Bl&nheim bomber of to-day.