THE AEROPLANE RELIC.

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 18240, 14 July 1931, Page 3

THE AEROPLANE RELIC.

NO SOLUTION OF MYSTERY. ( l)y Telegraph.—-Press Association.) WELLINGTON, July 14 So far no light has boon thrown on the finding at Gladstone, on the West Coast, of a piece of linen fabric “similar to that used for the fuselage of aeroplanes,” as reported on Tuesday last. The earliest telegraphed message, it will be recalled, suggested that the cloth may have been a fragment of the material covering the Ao-tea-roa, the Ryan monoplane in which Ilood and Moncrieff attempted to cross the Tasman early in 1928. Wing-Commander Crant-Dulton said to-day that his Department knew of nothing which would help to identify the fragment as part of an aeroplane, for the records gave no hint of fabric with such numbers being unaccounted for. The suggestion that it might be a fragment of the Southern Cloud, the Australian air liner operated by the Kingsford Smith-Ulm Company which was lost without a trace some months ago, he considers too long a shot altogether, nor did he think the “joke” solution a likely one. lie had no knowledge of the fabric, or whether it was from an aeroplane or not.

SUGGESTION FROM HAMILTON. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) • HAMILTON, July- 14 Although Government aviation officials say there is no means of identifying the fabric found at Gladstone as aeroplane material, Mr N. Calvert, of Hamilton, late inspector of aircraft in an Irish district and an aircraft linen expert, states that if supplied with a few inches of the material he can definitely tell if it is from an aeroplane or not.