NOTED AIRWOMA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19958, 16 November 1934, Page 12

NOTED AIRWOMA

A THRILLING EXPERIENCE Fraulein Thea Rasche, the only woman passenger on the Royal Dutch air mail aeroplane, which competed in the Centenary Air Race, does not expect ever to have such a thrilling experience again. When interviewed in Melbourne she said: “Even n stiff neck, from which I am still suffering, and the sense of having hours of sleep to make up, are minor discomforts and they in no way detract from my enthusiastic feelings about the flight.” Bouquets of beautiful flowers and many laurel wreaths still adorn her rooms at Menzies Hotel. Fraulein Rasche is competent to judge exactly what remarkably achievement that flight has been, for she herself is a noted airwoman, and has flown all kinds of machines during the past ten years. Not only was she the first woman in Germs™ to obtain her licence—that was in 1924—but she was also the onlv woman to qualifv for sea flying as well as for the land flying. Had it not been for the difficulty of obtaining the necessary financial support. Fraulein Rasche would have been an entrant in the air race, but her own aeronlane is not designed for such a contest of endurance, and a suitable machine would have cost more monev than it was possible to raise in such times of financial stringency in Germany. Fraulein Rasche said that, despite the fact that German women are not eligible to receive a commercial pilot’s licence, they are not debarred from taking up flying as a sport. She has won many races in America, as well as in Germany, and has acquired an enviable reputation as a fearless and clever stunter. But her accomplishments are not confined to the air. She is. in addition. editor-in-chief of an aviation iournal published in Berlin, and. as well as fulfilling her literary duties there, she has also consented to give a series of lectures about the flight in America, whither she will travel after a short glimpse of Sydnev. She has also been an officer of the Women’s International Association of Aeronautics for the past three years, and at the present time holds the post of vice-president of that organisation. Fraulein Rasche has a charming personality, and has swiftly endeared herself to all who have met her. She modest and unaffected, but one easily feels that she is an extremely competent and capable woman. Tall and well-built, with brown eyes and soft wavy hair, she makes a distinguished figure in her trim tailored day clothes, as well as in her smart evening gowns.