WOMAN PILOTS AIR-LINER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 418, 28 July 1928, Page 9

WOMAN PILOTS AIR-LINER

LADY HEATH ENGAGED AMSTERDAM TO LONDON (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) LONDON, Friday. For the first time in the history of civil aviation a woman Tlyer has been engaged to pilot a regular passenger air liner. Lady Heath (formerly Mrs. Elliott Lynn) will to-morrow fly from Amsterdam to London in charge of a Royal Dutch air liner, a large two-engined Fokker-Jupiter. Lady Heath obtained a passenger pilot licence recently. According to the usual routine for new pilots she will be accompanied to-morrow by a regular pilot in the cockpit. The plane will carry a full complement of 15 passengers. It is understood that it is Lady Heath’s ambition to pilot Imperial Airways’ giant triple-screw plane, the. world’s largest. PLANS LONG FLIGHT AIRWOMAN’S IDEA British Official Wireless. Reed.. Noon. RUGBY, Friday. Lady Heath, the well-known British airwoman, arrived at the Croydon airdrome to-day in the cockpit of a Fok-ker-Jupiter 15-passenger Dutch air liner. She has entered into a contract with the Royal Dutch air lines in order to obtain experience of large multipleengined machines. Although Lady Heath was nominally the second pilot on to-day’s trip, it is understood that she took charge throughout the journey from Amsterdam. It was her third day with a passenger machine. She flew from Amsterdam to Paris on Wednesday and to Brussels yesterday. She returned to Amsterdam from Croydon later to-day, and on Monday she expects to fly to Zurich. Her purpose is to obtain experience prior to a 20,000-mile flight from Holland to Batavia and back in the autumn. The Dutch are sending out four air liners to inaugurate an air service over that route, and Lady Heath is going as the pilot of the fifth machine, a Fokker with three Avm-strong-Siddeley engines, in which General Snyder, the distinguished Dutch soldier, will be among the passengers. Lady Heath’s previous air experience has been mainly with light machines, in which she has made nffny notable flights. COBHAM’S PROPHECY EARLY AIR-MAIL TO AFRICA (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) LONDON, Thursday. Sir Alan Cobham has flown 85,000 miles on special Empire trips since 1924. His recent survey of Africa convinced him that the whole of the African Continent could be covered by airplanes with 100 per cent, regularity. Sir Alan prophesies that within a year it would be possible to write a letter to Central Africa from London and to receive a reply within three weeks.