AMERICAN AVIATORS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19960, 19 November 1934, Page 12

AMERICAN AVIATORS

TRIBUTE TO WINNERS OF CENTENARY RACE By TelegraDb—Press Association AUCKLAND, November 17. Colonel Roscoe Turner, Mr Clyde Pangborn, and Mr R. Nichols, who won the second prize in the speed section of the Melbourne Centenary Air Race, are returning to the United States on the liner Mariposa, with their Boeing monoplane. Colonel Turner said that tns race was splendidly organised, and the time put up by C. W. A. Scott’and T. Camp-bell-Black was marvellous, and all credit was due to them. The reception that he and the other airmen got wr.s the finest in the world, he remarked. He was certain that none of the competitors were after the money. His own expenses, without the cost of the ■plane, were 25,000 dollars. Colonel Turner expressed great regret at the disaster at Longreach. and said that there were four main things which might cause such a crash: <1) An error of judgment by the pilot near the ground. (2) Improper inspection of the ’plane before flight. (3) Some form of structural failure. (4) The weather. In America, they found the most important work in aviation was the proper servicing of ’planes. He said that there was no reason why a regular trans-Tasman air service should not come within a few years. With proper ground organisation and equipment the service would be perfectly safe. Mr Clyde Pangborn, the famous American long-distance airman, said that his projected round-the-world flight, mentioned in the cables, would start towards the end of July. The scheduled time was four days five hours, not four days eight hours as cabled. The flight would be a nonstop one, his scheme being to refuel in the air at Moscow, China, and Siberia. The total distance would be about 16,000 miles. Fraulein Thea Rasche, the young German journalist and aviatrix, who flew as a passenger in the Dutch ’plane, is also on the Mariposa. She said that all the passengers on the ’plane had a feeling of absolute safety throughout. She said that she took over the controls between Darwin and Cloncurry, K. D. Parmentier and J. J. Moll, the pilots, being very tired. She flew it for four hours to give them a chance to sleep.