FIRST MAN TO FLY 10 MILES HIGH

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 164, 29 July 1937, Page 7

FIRST MAN TO FLY 10 MILES HIGH

(Own Correspondent-

Pilot Heard Sealed Cabin Split

50,000-FEET GLIDE

-By Air Mail.)

Flying over ten miles high, sealed up and shut off from the world, the roof of his cockpit split. The airman who broke the world 's altitude record mentioned this "incident" casually, as an after-thought, when he told his story to the Daily Sketch First man to fiy over ten miles high, curly-haired Might-Lieutenant M. J. Adam, 29-year-old ex-theological student, stuck his hands in his pockets and shyly confessed he had "been too busy" to tell his fianeee of two weeks, Mrs. Doreen Martin, of Brunswick Terrace, W., that he had broken the world 's altitude record. Taking oif from Farnborough at dawn yesterday, he reached a height of 53.937 feet, nearly half a mile higher than the Italian pilot, -001. Mario Pezzi, reached last month. In a quiet voiee he told how he waa completely out of sight of the world for half an hour. Blinded By Sun. "When I began my climb into tha stratosphere from the E.A.F. experimental station at Farnborough my vision was obscured by successive layers of cloud, which eventually shut me off completely from the world," he said. The sun at this hour was very low, with the result that I was completely blinded when attempting to steer east, and to see my instruments was impossible. The last rccognisable landmark was Rochester. "At 38,000 feet very sligkt frosting of the inside of the cabin oceurred, but this was not serious. "At 50,000 feet I had not scen tho ground for about half an hour so, having decided the wind was northwesterly, I sleered inorth-west. Tlds course [ maintained until I reached my ceiling. The actual climb lasted for 1 hour 35 minutes. "When my altitude was registering over 55,000 feet and the rate of the climb of the machine had dccreased to practically nothing, I realised that 1 had in ali probability broken the record by a substantial margin and I began my descent. Fingering his old school tie, Ihe sky 's-the-liinit man mentioned. quite casaually, how his cabin roof cracked. "1 heard a loud crack above m> head while flying near the ceiling," he said simply. "For (some minutes I couldn't think what it was and owing to the shape of the helmet I wore 1 could not look above my head." ' ' Later I just managed to see the end of a large crack in tho transparent cabin roof, which had burst through the contraction of the material rlue to cold. ' > After breaking the record he glided the whole way to eartli — tho world 's longcst glide. I'light-Lieutenant Adatn added he was quito wanu in the ascent, bat cold on the way down.