FLIGHT ROUND WORLD

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 193, 15 August 1931, Page 17

FLIGHT ROUND WORLD

Lindberghs will Extend Holiday Tour. DEPARTURE FROM ALASKA. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received August 15. 10.15 a.m.) * NOME, August 14. Colonel and Mrs Lindbergh took off from Safety Bay at 9.15 a.m. for Karagin Island. 10C0 miles distant. Good weather is reported on the route. The aviators intend to extend their present holiday flight to Japan to a flight round the world. MACHINE WELL EQUIPPED. Wife Acting as Relief Pilot and Navigator. The Lindberghs are undertaking an adventure, but the risks of this tour are not great when the famous airman's experience and equipment are considered in contrast with the ’plane he first flew alone. His first cross-country flight eight years ago was in an obsolete war-training machine; over the rugged, forested hills and mountains from Americus, Georgia, to the plains beyond the Mississippi was a more hazardous undertaking then than the present air voyage. That flight was over a wilderness before the days of emergency landing fields, airway beacons, and air-route maps. Instruments were crude and untested, and young Lindbereh’s knowledge and perience were meagre. No proper .nparison can be made between the pre-ent expedition and the solo flight over the Atlantic in an aeroplane loaded beyond all safe ty factors at the start. In the air. as well as on the ground and in the waters under the earth, it is the unknown that men fear; to most of the world the Arctic means danger and risk because it is still a fabulous, unknown land off the beaten track and beyond the horizon. The Lindberghs want to see the Arctic. Like motor touri.:' - * o sometimes turn off the concrete to explore mountain trails, the Lindberghs are riding a little-used skyway and land where aeroplanes must come down cautiously one at time instead of in flocks and bevies.

The craft -used, the Lockheed monoplane in which the pair established a trans-Continental record a year aro has a cruising, range of close to 2000 miles. Their route is about 4300 miles, and at no time need they be out of radio range. Mrs Lindbergh is not making this trip as a passenger. She is a licensed pilot, and upon her husband’s recordbreaking flight across the country last year she was navigator. She has her own aeroplane but when flying with her husband in a big machine she takes the c~ trols for her full share of the time. In addition to dual controls and duplicate flying inr' uments, the Lindbergh aeroplane carries two radio each equina with receiver and transmitter. Colonel Lindbergh can send and receive in code, and has been practising steadv to increase his speed In radio Mrs Lindbergh is almost as proficient as her husband. Her knowledge of navigation is excellent, and her practise of it exact. On previous flights which included something of pioneering and exploration, Lindbergh has flown alone. On this journey over the north lands of Asia he has. all m the same famib* a relief r> ; !ot, a relief navigator and a r " ' radio operator