OVER 20 YEARS AGO.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20503, 3 January 1935, Page 5

OVER 20 YEARS AGO.

First Aerial Mail in Australia. FRENCH AVIATOR’S FLIGHT. A regular aerial mail service between Australia and England has just been launched successfully—a few months over twenty years after Australia’s first aerial mail flight, writes Mr Frank Cornish in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” In two hours 11 minutes Sir Charles Kingsford Smith recently flew from capital to capital. Soon, i.d doubt, those 11 minutes at least will be shaved off this record. But the first MelbourneSydney flight was much more heroic an adventure than this brief two-hour hop it has since become. In June and July, 1914. M. Maurice Guillaux, a French aviator, who. it is said, introduced looping the loop to Australia, was entertaining Victoria with demonstrations of flying. On July 16, he left Melbourne for Sydney by air, taking, besides his personal luggage and some parcels for delivery, a 401 b mail bag. Guillaux’s “ flying machine ” was a Bleriot monoplane, a fragile-looking skeleton clothed only on wings, cockpit, and near the tail, with fabric. There was none of the sleek solidity of the modern retractable-wheeled aeroplane about this low-winged Bleriot of 20 years ago. Enthusiastic Send-off. Above the pilot’s head stood a metal pylon like a tall letter A, upon which taut wire guys from regular points along the wings were concentrated. Beneath, the naked, leggy framework holding the wheels performed a similar service. Vet the modern monoplane form was there in essential outline. The mailbag contained 1785 postcards, each of which had cost 2s, and most were over-stamped—by keen stamp collectors who had addressed their cards back to themselves via Sydney. As well, the aviator carried several official letters.

At 9.12 Guillaux took oc amid the cheers of about 250 people, and circling to about 1000 ft, headed north. School children and pedestrians in the northern suburbs waved and cheered as the low-lying aeroplane passed overhead. Over Wandong, 34 miles from Melbourne, at 9.25, his passage caused great excitement. People gazed fascinated at the aviator’s white helmet as he sat coolly in his roaring machine. But the farm animals were less interested than affronted. Dogs, first running to cover, barked desperately as he passed. Fowls and geese, cackling and protesting, scurried bout in fright. Horses and cattle, after a moment’s irresolution, bolted in all directions. Seventy Miles an Hour. The jcurnev to Melbourne —SSO miles —occupied 531 hours—just one hour longer than it took Scott and Black to reach Darwin from Mildenhall—Guillaux’s actual flving time was just over eight hours. He average 70 miles r i hour, but at times, with favourable winds, had touched 120 miles an hour. He was immediately surrounded by the crowd, which cheered as he brought the bag containing Australia’s first aerial mail to view. It was more than three years before another flight was made between the two capitals. In November, 1917, Lieutenant W. J. Stutt, chief instructor at Richmond Aviation School, at Richmond, New South 'Vales, made the first Sydnev-Melbourne flight. Leaving Sydney on Thursdav morning, November 2, he reached Point Cook at 1 p.m. next day. He had been held up at Goulburn overnight with a broken wing. His actual flying time must have been much the same as Guillaux’s for his average speed is recorded as “ about 70 to 75 miles ..n hour ” —to which was added a comment that would never occur to anvone nowadavs —“an improvement upon train speed!”