AIR RACE ENTRIES CLOSE

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1934, Page 5

AIR RACE ENTRIES CLOSE

SIXTY MACHINES TO COMPETE.

TWO NEW ZEALAND PILOTS.

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Melbourne, June 1.

When entries closed to-day 60 machines had entered the Centenary Air Race.

A cabled entry from Flying-Officer S. S. Kirsten for the handicap. section was received from New Zealand in the lastminute rush.

The earlier entries were: British, eight; Australian, eight; American, eleven; Dutch, four; New Zealand, two; Danish, one; Swedish, one; French, four; Italian, two; Irish, one. Mr. Harold Gatty, who with Mr. Wiley Post flew round the world, announced at New York that he would enter the race, using a specially-built American Douglas 14-passenger transport plane.. He will carry a fairly large complement including a photographer.

Late entries include:— Mr. Oliver Nicolson (New Zealand Centenary Committee); D.H. Dragon. Sir Alan Cobham; Airspeed Courier. Lady Cobham: Airspeed Envoy. Mr. James Baines, a New Zealander; Fairey Fox. Others include: Messrs. Clyde and Pangborn (U.S.A.), Lieut. Pond and Captain Sabelli, and Miss Ruth Nicholls (U.SA.).

Flying-Officer S. S. Kirsten served in the Royal Air Force from 1920 to 1926, and later became a partner in a firm operating an air service between Southampton and. the Channel Islands. He has flown many types of planes. Flying-Officer Kirsten said that he had been nominated as pilot of a Short-Scion plane, but he was not the entrant. He had hoped that a famous pilot’s name would have been entered, but as the time was short his own nomination was included as an alternative choice. Pending further cabled information he could say nothing more.