Christchurch Aero Club

Progress, Volume VI, Issue 12, 2 October 1911, Page 834

Christchurch Aero Club

The members of the Christchurch Aero Club, about whose existence and doings very little has been heard so far, held a field day at Hagley Park yesterday afternoon and gave demonstrations of the powers of flight of small model aeroplanes built by members of the Club. There were about half a dozen models in use yesterday, all of the monoplane type, some being fitted with single propellers, others with twin. Power for driving the propellers when the models were in flight was derived by the twisting of strands of elastic rubber, which extended from end

to end of the body of the machine, and although the winding up of these strands was a rather tedious process, yet when the tension was released they drove the propellers at an astonishing speed for quite a long time. The weather conditions were by no means satisfactory for the trials, a somewhat strong nor '-east wind blowing, and the flights were more or less erratic on this account, but the demonstration served to show the ability of the tiny planes to cover long distances and rise to big heights when their equilibrium in the air was not disturbed by eddying winds. There was a large crowd of spectators present, all of whom took the greatest interest in the flight of the models.