AIM “CIRCUS” FUR LONDON.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 August 1920, Page 4

AIM “CIRCUS” FUR LONDON.

AVAR REALISM. LONDON, June 4. An aerial display unique in the history of peace-time is to take place at the London Aerodrome, Hendon, N.W, on July 3, when, to aid the Royal Air Force Memorial Fund, our most redoubtful air fighters will re-enact, in every detail save their grim ending, some of those wonderful air combats of the war which are associated with the names of such champions as Hall, McCuden, Richthofen, and Guynemer.

The spectators will he transported mentally and visually to the “thrills” of the aerial battlefields of France. Forming themselves into opposing squadrons, and to the accompaniment of rattling machine-guns and dizzy swerves and dives, some of the finest surviving pilots of the R.A.F. heroes ail of many a hitter fight, will show how they won. The thousands looking on will also seo one of those breath-taking .melees, or “dog fights,” in which regular formation is lost, and the opposing machines simply fight out a series of isolated duels. ESCAPE FROM WRECKED BALLOON. For sheer realism, the display is likely to linger long in the minds of those who see it. A captive observation balloon, sent up from tho aerodrome to show its method of operation, will be attacked viciously by an “en-

only” aeroplane and, an happened so often in the real war ,sent down to the ground destroyed, its occupants making a dramatic escape, in lull view of the onlookers, by taking to their parachutes and floating earthward Another excitement will be the appearance over the aerodrome of one of the big rigid-type airships, from which ollicers will leap with parachutes and roach tho ground, as did one of the occupants of It 34, when she arrived in the United States

Special pilots will perform above the aerodrome all those evolutions which come under the expressive description of “stunts,” and of which many were invented and pcrleetcd during Ihe war to secure a sudden advantage over some enemy airman unfamiliar with the specific manoeuvre employed against him. These evolutions, tho skill of which must bo seen to lie believed, will include “rolling,” “ball' rolling,” “looping,” “tho falling leaf”—one of the most beautiful feats which can be performed with an aeroplane—“the flat spin,” and tli c “spinning nose dive.”