SOLO FLIGHT TO NEW ZEALAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20532, 25 September 1936, Page 9

SOLO FLIGHT TO NEW ZEALAND

PLANNED BY MISS JEAN BATTEN BRILLIANT AIR RECORDS RECALLED United Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. (Received September 24. 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, September 23. Miss Jean Batten, the New Zealand aviatrix, will shortly be attempting a record flight from England to New Zealand. Miss Batten, who is now preparing fc • the flight, will use the Percival Gull machine in which she flew the South Atlantic in November of last year.

FAMOUS WOMAN PILOT MISS BATTEN’S RECORDS SOLO ATLANTIC FLIGHT RECALLED In November last Miss Jean Batten, the New Zealand aviatrix, lowered the record for a solo flight across the South Atlantic by three hours and a quarter. The first of her sex to make this flight, she covered the two thousand miles from Thies, Senegal, West Africa, to Port Natal (Brazil) in 13 hours 15 minutes. This was not only a record for the solo flight, but it lowered by 22 minutes the record of 13 hours 37 minutes set up in September, 1935, by five airmen flying a fourengined French mail aeroplane. Miss Batten has also beaten Mr Mollison’s record for the flight from Lympne to Port Natal —82 hours 8 minutes—set up in 1933. Miss Batten took 61 hours 15 minutes. Previous solo fastest times for the South American flight were: 165 hours by Senor Pombo, a Spaniard; 175 hours by Mr James Mollison. The only others to cross the South Atlantic in touring aeroplanes are Mr Mollison, Colonel Lindbergh (accompanied by his wife), and M. Skarzinsky, a Pole. Miss Batten’s ocean crossing was a brilliant piece of navigation. She had to fly for nearly fourteen hours by her compass and instruments alone, requiring intense concentration, ability and confidence. Even a slight error in her navigation calculations over such a long distance would probably have resulted in disaster. The New Zealand aviatrix is the only woman who has made a flight from England to Australia and back. In 1935 she flew from Lympne to Port Darwin in just under fifteen days, setting up a new woman’s record for the flight, and reducing by four days the time taken by Mrs Amy Mollison ! in 1930. In April last year she made the return flight from Port Darwin to Croydon in 17 days 15 hours 15 minutes, just failing to beat the woman’s record.