HINKLER’S HISTORIC FLIGHT

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 129, 29 February 1928, Page 11

HINKLER’S HISTORIC FLIGHT

TOTAL COST, £55 STRIKING FEATURES OF HIS ACHIEVEMENT Bi Telegraph.—pbess association. Copyright. Brisbane, February 28. Hinkler, interviewed at Bundaberg, •aid that the flight to Australia cost him £55 approximately. It was difficult to work out the exact cost because the price of petrol varied from Is. 6d. a gallon in Britain to 3s. 6d. at Basra. He did 25 miles to the gallon, and used 450 gallons. He used very little oil. INTERESTING DETAILS OF FLIGHT London, February 27. /' In answer to a question in the House ef Commons, the Air Minister, Sir Samuel Hoare, said: “1 cannot at present add much to the information given in the Press regarding Captain Hinkler’s outstanding achievement, which I am glad to see given the prominence it undoubtedly deserves.” The Minister detailed the records broken, and said that Hinkler’s total flving time was 134 hours, and therefore if the flight had been continuous, day and night, it would have occupied only five days fourteen hours. Taking the whole time spent in the flight, including night and day halts, the distance worked out at thirty miles an hour. Taking the time of actual flying, the speed averaged 89 miles an hour. “The fact that 12,000 ■ miles were covered without repairs,” he said, “is a striking testimony to the reliability of the machine and engine. One of the most striking features of the flight is that the machine used was a standard Avro-Avian with a Cirrus engine which had been in use since 1926. The only alteration before the flight was the 'incorporation of extra tankage. A machine of this type complete, apart from extra tanks, costs £730, and approximately Hinkler’s consumption of petrol and oil cost only £5O. These figures are a striking indication of the great potentialities of aircraft for communications over the vast stretches of the Empire, oyer which other means of communication are either non-existent or relatively undeveloped.”—A.P.A. and "Sun.”

BRONZE BUST OF HINKLER London, February 27. The Czecho-Slovakian sculptor Otakar Steinberger, desiring to commemorate the Australian national hero, has decided to make a bronze bust of Hinkler, which he is asking the Royal Aero Club to hand to Hinkler.