PROGRESS OF AVIATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3400, 14 May 1919, Page 24

PROGRESS OF AVIATION.

(By Cable.) CHAMPION AIRMAN. LONDON, May 3. The Air Ministry has examined the •war records of British airmen, and has awarded the championship to the late Major Mannock, who brought down 73 enemy machines. Lieutenant-colonel Bishop (a Canadian) accounted for 72. M. Fonck holds the Allied record with 78. ACCIDENTS. LONDON, May 3. Flight-commander Peter Legs was testing an aeroplane at Finchley (near London), when the machine caught fire at a great height. Commander Legs jumped out and was killed. "The machine fell on a house, setting iton fire. May 5. Major-general Sykes, former Chief of the Air Staff, and now Controller of Internal Civil Aviation, who was summoned urgently to Paris in connection with the peace deliberations, was proceeding thither by aeroplane. His machine crashed to the ground at Kenley owing to side-slipping while ascending. The pilot was killed, and iGeneral Sykes, badly shaken, returned to London. , PARIS, May 6. General Stefanick, Czecho-Slovak War Minister, was killed while flying at Pressburg. He served with distinction in the Siberian anti-Bolshevik campaign. CROSSING THE ATLANTIC. LONDON, May 5.

The fogs and rainstorms in Newfoundland have subsided, and a drying westerly wind, accompanied by a rising barometer, promises an early start for the Transatlantic flight. United States naval seaplanes will shortly be attempting a flight. They will have the guidance of 60 destroyers, showing searchlights, one every 60 miles. The Vickers Company has entered another biplane for the transatlantic flight. It carries two Standard 350-horse-power Rolls-Royce engines, and a petrol capacity of 865 gallons. Its speed exceeds 100 miles an hour. The nilot will be Captain J. Allcock, who served in Turkey, and who will take the aeroplane to Newfoundland. ; NEW YORK, May 4. The New Yoi'k Times correspondent at Trepassey Bay (Newfoundland) reports that three United- States naval airmen cabled on April 29 that ships had arrived to make preparations for the Transatlantic flight. One vessel will supply guardships, which will be stationed along the route of the flight, via the Azores. A small United States seaplane made a trial flightover land. May 5. Fire damaged the naval Transatlantic seaplanes, necessitating a postponement of the flight. May 8. Three American seaplanes have started on the flight to Halifax in the first stage of the effort to cross the Atlantic. HALIFAX (Nova Scotia), May 8. Two of the American seaplanes have arrived here after a continuous .flight from New York. NEW YORK, May 9. The missing naval plane descended in the sea off the Massachusetts coast, and the airmen were rescued. AUSTRALIAN FLYING CORPS. LONDON, May 6. . The Australian Flying Corps, which has been disposing of its materials since being disbanded, is now returning to Australia. Senator Pearce and General Birdwood have had several consultations regarding the future of the Flying Corps, but so far no decision has been reached, though it is' understood that all Australians with flying experience in France will be welcomed if they enrol in the Flying Reserve in Australia. Many of the men are extremely anxious about their future, and hope that the Government will treat the force in a generous - and far-sighted manner, as their exploits in France have rjroved that it would be impossible to collect such another body of men as the nucleus of a military or commercial flying corps. MANCHESTER .TO ABERDEEN. LONDON, May 7. Colonel Douglas piloted, and Lieutenant Warneford navigated a Handley-Page aeroplane on its first commercial non-stop flight from Manchester to Aberdeen. Lieutenant Warneford is an Australian, cousin of Warneford, the winner of the Victoria Cross in 1915. The proprietors of the State Express cigarettes, in order to encourage transAtlantio flight, have offered an additional price of 2000 guineas under the competition rules of the Royal Aero Club.