AN AIRMAN’S WIFE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 86, 5 January 1935, Page 6

AN AIRMAN’S WIFE

Mrs Scott and the Centenary Race

Everyone seems to have been astonished at my husband’s record time In the London-Melbourne race, says Mrs. C. W. A. Scott, In an Interview with the “Sunday Chronicle.” Yet I can honestly, say that neither his win nor the speed of his flight came as any surprise to me. All the way along I felt certain he would win. I knew he had everything worked out to the last minute. My husband wins races because he is adventurous and because be is always ready to take a risk to get ahead of the other man. The reason why his gambles nearly always come off is due to the tremendous concentration, ano hard, skilled work he expends beforehand on his machine. ■No one can eliminate luck altogether, but I do believe that his exhaustive * preparations lor months before a race have far more to do with his freedom from mishaps than anything else. No matter how tiny the detail, he never overlooks it. Everyone looks upon my husband as haying won the race in three days. As a matter of fact, it took him six or seven months of really hard work to win it, and it is the solid, unspectacular toil of which no one ever hears that is the real factor of his success. He was the same over his physical fitness. Although he is naturally “tough,” he was determined to leave nothing to chance. Because he felt he was a little overweight he managed with only two meals a day on many occasions. Then both he and Blaek play “squash” together almost daily. This, coupled with the strenuous work they were putting in at the aerodrome, made them as hard as nails by the time they were due to start from Mildenhhll.' One item of food he has a weakness for—oysters! He is not the sort of man who worries his wife by any loss of 'appetite, but if he did so I should' know just what to prescribe for him. There is just one point about the race which I think ought to be cleared up in fairness to my husband. There have been complaints in German, Italian, and other foreign newspapers /that their pilots were not given sufficient time to practise with their new types of machines. That is all nonsense. In any case everyone knew the date of the race months beforehand. the winning Comet a week before the But Charles only took delivery 'of start. I think I am right In saying

that he had only been able to make two test flights in it before the race itself. , , There Is one thing I believe he loves even more than aeroplanes, and that is yacht racing. If he gave all his time to yacht racing I am certain ne would make an even better job of piloting a racing yacht than he does of piloting a racing ’plane. Although he earns his living by flying, he hates the idea of my going up in a ’plane. The times I have made flights with him I could number on the fingers of one hand « . . and they were all short trips. I am not saying he would stand in my way if lie knew I really wanted to fly, but he has said many times that one pilot in the family is enough. Everyone tells me that my husband must have been born fearless. Down at Mersea Island, where he spent his boyhood, they all have tales to tell of his daring. Dressed in a blue jersey and gumboots, like any fisherman, he would take his own little boat out into the rough seas off the East Coast without the smallest qualm. Friends often ask me when my husband Is going to give up these recordbreaking flights for some less hazardous work. The answer is that I have nor the slightest idea . . nor, I believe has he. As far as his flying plans are concerned he makes up his own mind, and I do not even try to influence him. He will tell me all about those plans, and discuss details with me, but they are made and unalterable before I even hear of them.

It seems to have been generally forgotten that for four years my husband was a commercial pilot. During that time he built up the reputation of being one of the most skilful pilots qualified, then suddenly he tired of the work. He felt he had got as far as he was ever likely to go in that particular sphere, and "longed to do something different. He told me at the time that he badly wanted to do something that no one had ever done before, to fly where no one had ever been, or to travel distances faster than anyone had ever done before.

Perhaps that is why he has been so successful. He is never content to follow in anyone else’s footsteps 1 . He always wants to be the first. I have never made the smallest attempt to dissuade Him from his projects, wild as they may have appeared to me at the time.