BRITISH AVIATION NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21358, 11 June 1931, Page 11

BRITISH AVIATION NEWS

PORTUGAL TO AFRICAN COAST' TOUR OF A “ GIPSY MOTH” ' AIR ADVENTURE IN 1931. V (From Quit Own Correspondent.) • LONDON, May 1. Few air travellers when the light plane trip across xbe world is almost a commonplace, can hope to enjoy the thrills of flying where no man has ever flown before to the extent described by Mr ’ Eduardo Bleck in his vivid account, just received in London, o# a journey of 12,730 miles from Lisbon to Portuguese Guinea and Angola and back to Portugal, which he made in company with Lieutenant Humberto da Cruz early this yeaf. In many places their “Gipsy Moth” two-seater biplane was the first light aeroplane to be seen, and in others the first flying machine of any kind to land. Evidently there is still much to do in the way of air exploration; the ambitious private owner need not yet sigh for fresh worlds to conquer. The journey was full of incident and pleasantly spiced with adventure. The airmen flew through tornadoes, were chased up a height of 8000 feet by a whirling sandstorm, dodged torrential rains-—and sometimes failed to dodge them—fought against the harmattan wind fronl the desert and flew for hours in low clouds and bad visibility. At some tropical aerodromes the air waa rare owing to the great heat; once the aeroplane stalled coming in to land, but the skill of the pilot corrected this error in time. At the next aerodrome they decided to take no chance-of the same thing reccurring, and levelled out to land at the extraordinarily high speed of 95 miles an hour, thus keeping well above the stalling point even in the thin hot air. Mr Bleck states that the machine spent 170 hours in the air, flying nearly every day. For 25 days it was picketed in the open at the end of the day’s flying without any s(|rt of cover, under blazing sun in some places, deluged by terrific rains at others, but on its return to Lisbon machine and engine were in perfect condition, the fabric spick and span and as taut as on the day the airmen left Lisbon two months before. AN AMATEUR REPAIR. ,At Abidjan, on the Ivory Coast, the craft was picketed for the night under trees. A violent tornado broke suddenly, one of the holding ropes parted, and the machine was lifted and flung against a tree, smashing the port elevator. No “ spare ”of this magnitude waa nearer than England, and a local carpenter was set to work to make a new elevator using an elastic indigenous wood called avodiri. The new .elevator was covered with what remained of the torn fabric and coated with two tins of motor car paint. “The test flight,” declares Mr Bleck, “ was most exciting as we were not quite certain of the elevator’s factor of safety! However, the machine took off all right and once in the air we rocketed it violently and as it stood perfect to this test wo decided that the elevator would see us through. And it did.” A GLAMOROUS ROUTE. The entire flight, except for two “ fill ups ” with aviation spirit was done on what Mr Bleck calls “ very ordinary * motor spirit, sometimes containing a large percentage of kerosene. The engine got rather hot once or twice under this treatment, but did' not otherwise complain, and a slight top overhaul on the return journey, done by the two men in an open field under the tropical sun,_ cheered it up again. Mr Bleck attributes the need for any overhaul at all entirely to the very bad quality of petrol obtainable. The itinerary sings of strange peoples and glamour, even in days when all the world seems known and few secrets are hidden. Down the African coast the travellers flew to Portuguese Guinea by way of Morocco, Mauretania and Senegal. Then they shot inland to Tambacounda and Kayes on the Senegal' River and Bamako on the Niger. Next, over virgin forest to the sea coast at Abidjan, and again along the coast to Loanda and Benguella in Angola, travelling v past Accra, Cotonu in Dahomey, Lagos Dula in the Cameroons, Port Gentii in Gaboon, Pointe Noire and the Belgian Congo.