A WARM WELCOME.

Wairarapa Age, 21 December 1932, Page 5

A WARM WELCOME.

AMY JOHNSON’S ARRIVAL AT CROYDON. JOYOUS END OF PERILOUS FLIGHT. NEW CAPETOWN TO LONDON RECORD. RUGBY, December 19. A huge crowd welcomed Amy Johnson (Mrs. Mollison) when she reached Croydon yesterday after her extremely arduous flight from the Cape. The return journey of <>2oo mites occupied 7 days 7 hours 5 minutes, as compared with 4 days 6 hours 53 minutes on the outward flight. Although delayed by exceptionally bad weather, she nevertheless established a fresh record for the Capetown to London journey, the previous best time being that of the Duchess of Bedford and Captain Barnard, who, in 1930, completed the flight in ten days. After landing at Croydon, where she was officially welcomed on behalf of the Air Ministry and received numerous messages of congratulation, including one from the King and another from the Royal Aeronautical Society, thc airwoman proceeded to her home in the West End and was greeted along the route by eheering crowds. In describing the journey Amy Johnson said her worst experience was on the all-night flight before the tornado between Duala and Mossamedes on the way south, when she was blown 100 miles out to sea and had considerable difficulty in fighting her way back to land. The same part of the flight spelt danger on the way home. She encountered thick cloud, and in order to avoid the 13,000 feet mountains in the neighbourhood had again to go out to sea, finding her course by flying very low along the eoastline. When flying through a valley in the Atlas Mountains she struggled against a 75-miles-an-hour wind and had to proceed crab-wise up the valley in imminent danger of being driven against its rocky sides.

She met almost every kind of weather, including snow, during her journey, but showed few idgns of fatigue on reaching Croydon. She paid a warm tribute to her Puss Moth machine and to tho Gypsy engine, which, she said, never missed a revolution.—(British Official Wireless.)