AMY JOHNSON ON NEW FLIGHT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19267, 2 January 1931, Page 1

AMY JOHNSON ON NEW FLIGHT.

INTREPID AIRWOMAN HOPS OFF TO PEKIN. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received January 2, 12.30 p.m.) RUGBY, January 1. Miss Amy Johnson left this morning on an 8000-mile solo flight to Pekin, via Berlin, Moscow, Omsk, and the trans-Siberian route. On the northern stage of the flight the machine will be fitted with skis. She hopes to reach Brussels, or Berlin, to-day. This will be the first British flight direct to Pekin. “ I determined on this flight two months ago,” she said. “ I have done everything myself and so that my plans should not leak out, I got my friends to buy, at different shops, plans of the countries over which I must pass.”

Miss Johnson expects to reach Moscow via Berlin and Warsaw in three days where the landing wheels will be replaced by skis. “ From Moscow I shall go to Samara, thence following the trans-Siberian railway to Irkutsk, and Chita, and across the Gobi Desert to Pekin,” she said. “ This trip thrills me more than the flight to Australia, because much more of the route is unknown, and beyond Moscow there are no recognised landing places. I shall always wear a parachute.” Miss Johnson proposes to come back by another route.