GREAT AIR RACE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18057, 6 April 1933, Page 9

GREAT AIR RACE

LONDON TO MELBOURNE KEEN INTEREST ANTICIPATED SYDNEY, March 30. Great interest has been aroused throughout Australia in the aninnitiLxnient front Melbourne that Sir Maupherson Robertson hud given ti, the Lord Mayor a cheque for £IIO,OOO as the prize for the winner of tin air race from London to Melbourne in October, 1934. The idea of the race is to popularise the Melbourne centenary celebrations, tor which elaborate arrangements are being made. Next year will be a gala year in Melbourne, and during the time set apart for the actual celebrations there will be many attractions, the whole plan being on a huge scale. The Lord Mayor, in announcing the gift, said the race would be the greatest in the history of aviation. He was confident that makers of aircraft throughout the world would be anxious to Ih> represented by high-class pilots. All the competitors would start from London at the same time. I hey would have to follow a prescribed route, and the first pilot to reach Melbourne would be presented with the cheque. The rare would not be hedged in with many conditions. Any machine from any nation would be entitled to compete. There would he no restriction on the size of the crew and none on the number or size of the engines. It was thought that aeroplane makers would at, once begin to design special machines for the race. Sir Charles Kingsford Smith said it was unlikely that he. would be a starter in the race. He said he was not altogether in favor of long-distance races, especially where big prize-money was the lure, because it encouraged a number of people to take unnecessary risks. Anyhow, such a flight would have to be under the strictest control. Competent committees would have to he appointed to supervise the starters and see that the machines were properly equipped for the hazardous flight to Australia. Others interested in aviation praised the idea', and expressed the view that ii w'l-dd do a great deal for aviation at a time when further encouragement

"‘ns in' e s-ry. In miiiiv quarters it is a i-ed that no Australian would have n cbnnce of winning the prize agio list axir’ors who would have the Unking of ; nportant organisations all over the world.