PRIVATE FLYING

Evening Star, Issue 19804, 1 March 1928, Page 5

PRIVATE FLYING

HEW ZEALAND POSSIBILITIES •PLANES NO DEARER THAN CARS (.Special to thb ‘Star.’] CHRISTCHURCH, February 29. “In my opinion Mr Hinkler’s Bight emphasises the possibility of the development of private Hying. There is no reason why in Canterbury, with its level plains and good climate, private flying should not become common. Such machines as the Moth, the most pleasant type of plane I have flown, make that development a very real probability.” These remarks were made by Captain L. M. Isitt, of the New Zealand Air Force, who returned to Christchurch to-day from a course of training and investigation in England. ‘‘The Moth,” he said, 11 possesses a Cirrus engine. It has been steadily developed, and it now has about a four-hour cruising radius, and is capable of an average speed of eighty miles per hour. It has folding wings, and can be accommodated in a shed very little larger than an ordinary garage. It costs £730. The De Haviland Company is developing the Moth, and the A. V. Roc Company, the designer of the Avro, is developing the Avian, .a similar type to the Moth. Both companies are developing engines of their own design for light airplanes, which should tend to a general improvement in the machines, and a lowering of the price. “ The chief thing which struck me in England is the increased reliability of the engines,” said Captain Isitt. “Never on any station at which I was attached was a machine forced to land away from a ’drome. Another feature is the increased loading per horse power. A 450 h.p. machine will carry a load which at the end of the war would have needed double the horse power to lift it.”