SOCIETY IN THE AIR.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 59, 16 April 1914, Page 5

SOCIETY IN THE AIR.

LADY DUDLEY LOOPS THE > LOOP."

The announcement cabled to the < < Age '' that th.e x Countess of Dudley, the wife of the former Governor-Gen-eral of Australia, had "looped the loop" in an aeroplane at Hendon, which is only a few miles out of London, is an indication of the extent, to which some of the foremost society ladies in England are fascinated by the achievements of aviators, wrote the London correspondent of the "Age."

The successful airman numbers among his numerous admirers a good sprinkling of ladies belonging to aristocratic families. The airman is now the lion of the season in some sections of society, and great ladies do not regard it as out of place to flatter him and pay court to him. Even the young ladies of the middle classes, who previously worshipped the beauty actor, have transferred their-affections to the aviator, and in despair at the prospect of enticing him away from the ladies of the aristocracy, they write pathetic love letters, begging for his auto : graphed photograph. But the aviators are not rich men, and they make a charge of 5/- from their admirers for their photographs. Among their admirers are numerous applicants for flights as passengers, and at Hendon aerodrome on a Saturday afternoon as many as sixty aerial passengers are carried. The fee for a flight round the aerodrome is £2 2/-, and for a rer turn trip from Hendon to Brooklands aerodrome and back, a total distance of about twenty miles, the fee is £25. The charge for ( ' looping the loop'' has not yet been fixed, but many offers of £SO to £IOO have been made by society ladies. M. PEGOUD. "Looping the loop, "which was first performed in England last summer by the French aviator, M. Pegoud, consists in climbing to a great height, and then dipping the nose of the aeroplane downwards until the machine falls perpendicularly. The pilot, with his hands on the controls, keeps the nose of the machine downwards until the machine stops falling, and flies upside down, and then gradually climbs upward in a perpendicular position, and finally rights itself. The loop formed by this manoeuvre is not a mathematical circle, because the machine, drawn downwards by the law of gravitation, falls much faster in a perpendicular position than it rises when it is climbing upward. The course of a flight in "looping the loop" is a long, downward curve, with a circular -loop at the \ end of it. ARISTOCRATIC AVIATORS. Mr Gustav Hamel, who piloted the machine on which Lady Dudley '' looped the loop,'' is regarded as the most skilful aerial pilot in England. He performed the manoeuvre of'"looping the loop" five times in the one flight with Lady Dudley. That is to say, he took the machine to such a, height that he was able to go through the manoeuvre five times in succession before the machine came so close to the earth as to render a sixth loop impossible. In '' looping the loop'' both the pilot and his passenger have to be strapped to their seats, as they are sitting with their heads pointing downwards towards the earth for nearly half the time. Lady Dudley, before "looping the loop," had taken several ordinary flights with Mr Hamel at various times. Among the other titled ladies who have gone in for flying at Hendon are Millicent Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Limerick, Lady Diana Manners, Lady Scott, Lady Ponsonby, and Lady Eileen Knox. Ladies on being interviewed after their first flight invariably describe it at "the most glorious sensation I have ever experienced." Miss Trehawke Davis and Lady Victoria Pery, the daughter of the Earl of. Limerick," have enjoyed the experience of "looping the loop," having been taken up by Mr Gustav Hamel some weeks before he took up Lady Dudley.