ITALIAN AIRMAN

Otago Witness, Issue 3782, 7 September 1926, Page 30

ITALIAN AIRMAN

MARCHESE DI PINEDO’S FLIGHT. VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND SYDNEY, September 3. It is stated t! t the Italian aviator, the Marchese di Pinedo, has altered his plans for a world flight. Instead of flying westward across the Atlantic to America, he will circle Africa, then fly across Iraq, Persia, India, and Australia to New Zealan; thence via the East Indies, China, Japan, the Kurile Islands, the Aleutian Islands, North and South America, across the Atlantic to Spain, and thence to Italy. On his visit to New Zealand the Marchese di Pinedo is expected to touch first at Auckland, whence he will flv to Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. From this city he will commence his return flight. The Marchese has already taken part successfully in a record flight of 34,000* miles, during which he visited Sydney and other parts of Australia last year. The flight took six months and a-half, including a five w*eks halt at Tokio. The engine was changed only once, and the entirp flight was made with the same propeller and the same wings. Di Pinedo is extremely modest and reticent, and at no time did he imperil the success of his expedition by over-haste or rashness. The cablegrams he sent from his various stopping places during the flight t have since been placed in an Italian museum as a memento of-his flight. They nearly all consist of one word, other than the address—his name. The Marchese di Pinedo is now 36 years old, and speaks good English, though with a marked accent. He took up flying something like nine years ago, prior to which he was an officer in the Italian navy. When taking part in a flight, which he terms “a very strenuous form of life,’* he only spends five hours sleeping each night, and he is like an athlete in training—all muscle and energy.