A VENTURESOME LADY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 9980, 4 May 1911, Page 3

A VENTURESOME LADY.

SEPTUAGENARIAN AVIATRICE

[n the ordinary course of events it would not be expected rhat a lady who has passed the allotted span of three years and tt-u would desire to travel in an aeroplane. Yet three is such a lady in Victoria. While giving : exhibitions near Melhonrut w.th his ! hipi.'sne. Me Hammond frequently took passengers with him in his flights, and among tho nuiiihcr vvi. n; .'■everal ladies. When they returned to earth after their journeys skywards these Jadies were invariably enthusiastic about the. delights of Hying, hut none were more so than the little old lady of 70 years who came along one day and insiterl upon booking a sent. Mr Hammond did not really rako her request seriously at iitft, bnt the lady was in-sisf-'iit and nersnasive. She had, she said, travelled in many lamls ; had been up the Effiel Tower iv Paris, veutured on the big wheel at Earl's Court, and had enjoyed the delights of "shooting the schute. " She had ridden in Cobb's coaches in the cinys of the gold rushes, had been np in a captive balloon, and down in the diving bell at the Poitechnic in London ; now sfie generally takes her ease in a powerful motor car. Bnt she had never been up in an aeroplane. That was one the one experience that she desirpd while she still had health iind strength and could afford to pay for costly pleahuii:- And when it was realised that si.c meant what she said, her wish was gratified. She was taken 20 or aO miles at an altitude of several hundred feet, and when she landed safely at the conclusion of her hall:----hour's excursion she was perhaps the most satisfied and delighted old lady in Melbourne. She probably is the oldest person that has yet been up in an aeroplane. The question now arises whether there is a similarly veuturegnme septuagenarian in Sydney.,

Mr Hammond sailed over Melbourne at a height of 5000 ft, covering 25 miles in ijo minutes, and he expects to do even bettei than that in Sydney