CENTENARY RACE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20284, 19 April 1934, Page 11

CENTENARY RACE.

Winner Should Take Under Three Days. AVIATORS OPINION. (Special to the " SYDNEY, April 13. S3’dney has had a visitor this week who is able to discourse pleasantly and instructively about aviation in general and the progress of the Melbourne Centenary race in particular. Mr Bernard Rubin (popularly known as “Benny”) reached Mascot Aerodrome by aeroplane this week, having started from Croydon on March 22. The time taken on the journey shows that Mr Rubin and his companion, Mr Ken Waller, were in no hurry to get here. Over the Course. They have been following the course already mapped out for the Centenary race and making themselves familiar with its special features. The Leopard Moth monoplane in which they flew here cruises at about 125 miles an hour, with a maximum of 150 m.p.h. But Mr Rubin, who proposes to enter for the race, is having a Comet machine specially built for him which will be very much faster.

Naturally, Mr Rubin declined to give any particulars about his new plane. But he believes that the winner of the race will need to reach Melbourne in three days from England—a view that is in keeping with the opinion expressed by Kingsford Smith and many British and American flyers. Mr Rubin tells us that the great race is the principal topic of discussion in all the aviation centres and the principal clubs at Home, and he thinks that the entries will, for the most part, come, not from construction companies, but from individual flyers who wilj send in their names in a thoroughly “ sporting ” spirit. Of course, the winner of the first prize (£10,000) will be able to recoup himself for his outlay. For the others it will be all expense and no profit; and in Mr Rubin’s opinion the cost to each competitor will be about £7OOO. Element of Risk. These figures, with the added risk, ought, one would think, to deter anybody not really in earnest about flying. For there is no doubt that the element of risk is always obtruding itself in the air, even in such leisurely voyaging as Rubin and his companion have indulged in. When they were coming across the Timor Sea and were in sight of the Australian coast, one of the tanks failed. The engine cut out, and for a minute or so they were in imminent peril of crashing. But with machines built simply for speed and flying up to 250 miles per hour, the risks will be vastly intensified. It is probable that difficulties will arise when the American machines are called upon to conform to the British and European standard of stability and security, which does not operate in the United States. There, apparently, a machine is “ airworthy ” so long as it will fly, and the only proof of insecurity is “ crashing.” But Mr Rubin and his views on this subject should be particularly interesting to Australians just now, because he is “ one of ourselves.” lie was born in Melbourne in 1896, the son of Mr Mark Rubin, a wealthy pearl dealer. He was taken to England when six years old, and grew up there. He went to Rugby, and when the war broke out he enlisted and served with the R.F.A. in France for three 3*ears. lie was wounded so severely that for three years he could not walk. This misfortune naturalb' turned his attention to motoring, and later to aviation. Motoring and Flying. He became an expert motor-driver and was for several >'ears a member of the Bentley racing team, and in 1928 he won the 24 hours motor race on the Le Mans circuit. Meantime he had bought properties in Australia, and with his brother he owns Northampton Downs, a large sheep station in Western Queensland. Ilis brother, Harold, usually attends to the family interests in London, and “ Benny ” Rubin, in the intervals between motor racing and big game shooting in India or Africa, visits his possessions in Australia. lie was here in 1921 and again in 1922, inspecting his holdings in Queensland and the Northern Territory. It was on this last occasion that he started out on his first long air trip with “ Scotty ” Allan. When the plane reached Brisbane it was over-weighted, and Rubin, as a superfluous passenger, was put off. Fie protested vigorousl>-, but he was very fortunate, for this was the plane that came to grief at Alor Star in the tragic crash which inflicted on Colonel Brinsmead, our Director of Aviation, the injury from which he never recovered. But accidents do not seem to affect Rubin, who is typically Australian in , his fearlessness and reckless love of adventure. This “ spectacular sporting Croesus ” is very much in earnest about the Centenary race, and if money and daring combined can win the prize Australia’s “ flying millionaire ” has a chance second to none.