NO CHANGE IN CONDITIONS

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1934, Page 7

NO CHANGE IN CONDITIONS

ENGLAND-MELBOURNE RACE

REPLY TO AMERICAN AIRMEN AIRWORTHINESS OF CRAFT MARGIN OF SAFETY SOUGHT By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 11.52 p.m. Melbourne, April 27. The centenary air race committee has framed a reply to complaints from America that the rules governing the airworthiness of aircraft participating in the centenary air race had been designed to exclude American aeroplanes. Tire reply declares there is no possibility of the conditions of the race being altered because any alteration would lower the margin of safety. The committee does not desire any repetition of the tragic Dole prize race' from San Francisco to Hawaii in 1927, and is leaving the approval of American aeroplanes entirely to the supreme American authority, the Department of Commerce.

“The information available from Australia concerning the Macßobertson competition implies that it is only a handicap race restricted to standard aircraft holding an airworthiness certificate in the normal category,” stated the letter of the National Aeronautic Association of the United States. “The book of rules printed in January by the Royal Aero Club, London, stipulates .that a normal category certificate is required both for the speed and handicap events. This will debar American long-distance and speed aeroplanes from carrying so-called N.R. certificates of the Department of Commerce.

“These certificates are issued for speci-ally-built craft considered to be airworthy, but not of a standard for commercial operation. Such aeroplanes as those of Wiley Post (Winnie Mae), Colonel Colonel Lindbergh’s Lockheed (the Spirit of St. Louis), Major Frank Hawks’ Fire Chief and Roscoe Turner’s and James R. Wedell’s cross-country racers will be barred if the normal category rule is enforced. “Mr. Ray, when he arrives in London, will ask that aeroplanes eligible for the annual Bendix transcontinental race in the United States be eligible for the Centenary' race, which would permit the entry of American speed ,and distance craft.”