HEROINE OF THE AIR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23015, 19 October 1936, Page 10

HEROINE OF THE AIR

MISS BATTEN’S FLIGHT ACCLAIMED WORLD-WIDE CONGRATULATIONS DOMINION TOUR PLANNED VISIT TO DUNEDIN INCLUDED (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, Oct. 18. Since her arrival Auckland on Friday evening after her wonderful record flight from England Miss Jean Batten has been inundated with cablegrams and telegrams of congratulation from all parts of the world and a heavy letter mail from persons in every district in New Zealand. So far the messages total upwards of 1000. Though she is very weary and is showing signs of strain, those in touch with her are amazed at her vitality and capacity, to attend to questions that arise dealing with engagements. Miss Batten is to leave Auckland on Wednesday for Hamilton. On Thursday she will leave for Wel- • lington, whjere it is possible she will spend four days. She will then go on to Christchurch and possibly spend four days there. After that sne will visit Dunedin. She will not fly on this tour, either ’ as a pilot or a passenger. It is necessary for her to conserve her energies and on that account she has had to postpone many public engagements in Auckland until her return, the date of which is indefinite.

Illustrations of Miss Jean Batten’s arrival at Mangere Aerodrome are printed on page 4.

To-day she was entertained at luncheon by the Postmaster-general , (Mr F. Jones), when the guests included the Attorney-general (Mr H. G. R. Mason) and Mrs Mason' and Mr J. G. Coates and Mrs Coates. In the evening she was the guest at a dinner party of the Mayor of Auckland (Mr Ernest Davis), other guests being the members of the executive of the Auckland Aero Club. . . ... To-morrow a civic reception will be accorded to her at the Town Hall by the Mayor. Mr F. B. Dwyer, of the Internal Affairs Department, is in Auckland arranging details connected with her visit, but it is likely that any official Government reception will be held in Wellington, as it is her desire that nothing of that sort should be done in Auckland. Except when she arrived in Auckr land and on her theatre appearances, the public has had little opportunity to see her, but whenever she drives to the theatre, which are the,only occasions on which she leaves her hotel, she is greeted in the streets with enthusiasm. There is no doubt that Auckland has taken her to its heart. Miss Batten travelled to Auckland with a very light wardrobe, which did not even include an evening dress. A large spray of orchids had been posted from Sydney to Auckland and awaited her on her arrival. Orchids are her favourite flower. COMPLETION OF FLIGHT DEEP SENSE OF RELIEF ■ SIGNIFICANCE NOW REALISED RELAXATION OF TENSION (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND. Oct. 18. I do not expect to fly back across the Tasman, but really I haven’t any plans at the moment,” said Miss Batten to-day. "There seems to be a tendency to regard the Tasman flight as a ‘ stunt,’" she continued,, “ but I have never regarded it as that. To me the crossing of the Tasman from Australia represented merely the last hop of my flight from England, and there does not seem to be any reason just now to fly across it again. Actually, I was very surpiised when I arrived in Australia to find the agitation existing against crossing. There were newspaper headings such as “Will Jean Batten Fly the Tasman? ’ and * Perils of the Tasman Crossing.’ “ Months before I left England I had made up my mind to fly to my home in New Zealand, and I had collected all the meteorological data and other information available about the Tasman. In view of the feeling I found in Sydney, I interviewed Sir Archdale Parkhill and pointed out to him that the classification of my machine in'England, which had permitted me to fly the Atlantic, entitled me to undertake a flight from Great Britain to New Zealand, and that the authorities must be perfectly aware they had no power to stop me. “I told him, however,” she said, “ that if it were their honest opinion that the attempt would cause any international complications and the Prime Minister of Australia (Mr Lyons) made a request that I should not fly the Tasman, I was prepared to fall in with their wishes. I am very grateful to Sir Archdale Parkhill for what followed. He gave me every facility to continue my flight to my destination.” LEAK IN PETROL TANK Miss Batten’s reply was emphatic when asked what was her mental reaction when she discovered about two-thirds of the way across the Tasman that the port centre section of the petrol tank was leaking badly. “ I hadn’t any reaction,” she declared. “ The machine carried plenty of petrol, enough fof a 14 hours’ flight, and the section was self-con-tained. The Atlantic flight was a longer one, of course, but on that occasion I was aiming at a continent, and if I had gone a few miles out of my course it would not have mattered much. But New Zealand is an island, and navigation has to be so much more exact. My relief, therefore, when I sighted the islands off New Plymouth and knew I was dead on my course was much greater than when I sighted the South American continent. The visibility was bad off New Zealand, and Mount Egmont, the ‘ white hope ’ of Tasman flyers, was covered with dark clouds.

When I approached it only a few hundred yards of its lower slopes were visible. “ JOURNEY’S END ” “ I never felt more relieved than when I turned the ignition key at the Mangere aerodrome at Auckland,” she concluded. “I had made the longest Empire flight in the plane which had also carried me across the Atlantic to Brazil and down to Argentina, and when I turned that :ey I stopped an engine that had never failed me on the long trip from England. I then felt more satisfaction than I had experienced at the end of any other flight, and yet not until I woke about 2.30 next morning, as I had wakened so many mornings with thoughts of the task ahead, did I experience the full significance of what had happened. I could lie abed and sleep again. I had nowhere else to fly to. I was at ‘ Journey’s End.’ ” ANXIOUS MOMENTS LANDING WITH DEFECTIVE BRAKES PLANE RUNS IN CIRCLES (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, Oct. 18. The most risky experience that befell Miss Batten on her flight from England was at Darwin when she landed with defective brakes, but, very fortunately for her, with the engine off. The fluid that is the basis of the braking action had oozed from one, and the other had jammed, so that when she touched the ground the plane, under its great momentum began to run in circles. “I was just going to land/’ she said, describing the incident. “ when the throttle jammed. There was nothing for it but to go up again and circle. As I touched land again I switched off the engine. Had the propeller not been ‘ dead ’ I would have been whirring round still. As it was, the plane began to run in circles, and hundreds of persons on the ground must have imagined there was a limp or fainting young aviator at the controls. I did what I could to remove that impression, yelling in the most unladylike way at the top of my voice for someone to rush up and hold the plane, but no one moved. All I could do was to yell. “ I did not realise it then,” she continued, “but the inaction of the crowd was because of the quarantine regulations applying to an arriving aircraft. Then one man ran forward. I screamed at him to grab the plane. Finally he understood, caught the wing, and pulled it up. He was the one man in that crowd with authority to lay a hand on the plane, although I did not discover that until later. He was the quarantine doctor.” > ERROR IN NAMING ISLAND A PARDONABLE MISTAKE (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, Oct. 18. A trickle of water on Miss Batten’s chart as she approached New Zealand on her Tasman flight was responsible for an error in her naming of an island which she ' first sighted off the coast and which was on the line of her objective. The island is the Sugarloaf. She named it on her log as Bell Rock, and so described it in her copyright account of her flight, which was cabled to England and Australia. “ Because of a damp chart. I appear to have misread ' Bell Block,’ which is the name of the New Plymouth aerodrome, as * Bell Rock,’ and thought it referred to the island,” she confessed. “I am sure I don’t know what to do about my mistake.” The Postmaster-general (Mr F. Jones), who was present, made a suggestion to overcome the difficulty. “We will have to alter the name of the island on ■ the maps to Bell Rock,” he said. MESSAGES FROM AERO CLUBS LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER DELIVERED “AUSTRALIA’S ADMIRATION ” / (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Oct. 18. The Prime Minister (Mr Savage) this morning . received the letter carried by Miss Jean Batten from the High Commissioner in London (Mr W. J. Jordan). The- letter was delivered from the Post Office. It bears the London postmark pf October 5 and the Auckland stamp of yesterday’s date, together with Miss Batten’s name on the envelope. Mr Savage also received the following cable from Sir Archdale Parkhill. Minister of Defence m Australia:—" Please accept hearty congratulations on Miss Batten’s great flight. Australia joins with New Zealand in admiration.” Practically every aero club in New Zealand has sent congratulatory messages to Miss Batten. The president of the New Zealand Aero Club (Mr C. Weinstein) said when he was asked to comment on ihe flight from England to New Zealand that he had sent c message of congratulation on behalf of the New Zealand Aero Club, telling Miss Batten how delighted members were at her safe arrival in New Zealand. The flight, he said, was .he most magnificent one undertaken for years and he was pleased that the machine had stood up to the test. He had never had any doubts about Miss Batten’s ability to make the journey. She wa,. also to be congratulated on having made the finest landfall to date. The flight proved that given proper ground organisation and sufficient pilots, an air mail service could be conducted between England and New Zealand in at least the time occupied for Miss Batten’s flight. Such a mail service must come eventually and he believed the latest ffight would hasten its inauguration. MR MACDONALD’S MESSAGE (British Official Wireless) (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) RUGBY, Oct. 1 Mr Malcolm MacDonald asked + he Governor-General of New Zealand to convey a message of personal congratulation to Miss Jean Batten. REWARD FOR COURAGE (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, Oct. 16 (Received Oct. 18, at 5.5 p.m.) The Times editorially says: “ The flight is a reward for careful planning, organisation, courage and endurance. The Tasman hop is an act of deliberate courage, and the achievement provides another en-

couraging preamble to the proposed Anglo-Australian Air service and sounds a rousing, even a challenging note in the negotiations for continuance of the service to New Zealand.” OAMARU CONGRATULATIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENT RECEIVED (Special to Daily Times) OAMARU, Oct. 18 The Mayor of Oamaru (Mr M. F. E. Cooney) has forwarded on behalf of the citizens of Oamaru, a telegram congratulating Miss Jean Batten on the brilliant termination of her magnificent flight. Miss Batten has acknowledged ( lhe message in the following terms: “ To the citizens of Oamaru, for their warm message of congratulations, I am deeply grateful. I appreciate their kind thought.” FIVE RECORDS BROKEN

During her flight from Lympne, England, to Mangere, Auckland, Miss Jean Batten broke five records. She established a record for a solo flight from England to Australia; she reached Sydney in record time from London; she flew the Tasman in the record time of 9hr 30min; she is the first woman to have flown the Tasman; and finally, she reached Auckland, her home city, in 10 days 21 hours—the fastest journey ever made between England and the Dominion.