MELBOURNE REACHED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19127, 23 September 1936, Page 5

MELBOURNE REACHED

LORD SEMPILL'S PLANE

POSSIBLE RECORD BID

(Kecd. Sept. 23,11 a.m.) MELBOURNE, Sept. 23

Four and a-half hours after leaving Charleville, Queensland, 825 miles away, Lord Sempill's monoplane arrived at the Essendon aerodrome last night.

An attempt probably will be made to lower the Melbourne to London record for a .commercial plane on the return journey. .'. '

The British "airman, Lord Sempill, and three companions left England on July 29 in a Monospar Croydon monoplane with the intention of flying to Australia. An earlier attempt had been made on July 10, but the flight was abandoned at Vienna owing to a defect in the petrol feed, of the machine. Lord Sempill said'he was not interested in breaking Mr. C. W. A. Scott's Melbourne Centenary air race record. Since he was concerned, however, in the air lines of Australia,, he was anxious to test his machine and see how it behaved under Australian conditions. At Karachi on September II Lord Sempill, after being delayed there for 10 weeks, decided to return to England on hoard a Dutch-airliner. Messrs. H. Wood, pilot, P. Gilroy, wireless operator, and L. Davies, ground engineer, who accompanied Lord Sempill from England, proceeded with the plane to Australia, where Lord Sempill intended to rejoin them later.