AVIATION.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 November 1927, Page 2

AVIATION.

(Australian it X.Z. Cable Association.) WORLD'S SPEED HEROES. LONDON, Nov. 5. Segrave and Webster, the world’s speed heroes, met as guests at the Civil Service Motoring Association's Dinner. They recognised each other at a glance and exchanged cheery greetings and mutual congratulations on their performances. Afterwards the diners sang “For They are Jolly Good Fellows.”

Segrave, responding to a toast slid: “As a- pilot myself during the war, I admire every good pilot. Webster .s the best the Air Force has produced: J am the worst. 1 had a machine which was a ghastly affair. Ihe engine was behind, and the pilot stuck out in front. I landed undignifiedly at the first effort, got another machine, landed twenty loot up. fell like a. stone, and then set off for the third time, with instructions licit to risk landing at Dover, hut to go straight on to France. The propeller iblade dropped off six miles from the Channel, for which reason I chose dropping into the sea in preference to gliding over the cliff.” Webster said: “Segrave’s record in motoring eclipses mine in flying, because he ha.s tenfold worse elements to contend with.” Debarnadi, last year’s Schneider Cup winner, beat A\ ebster s retold, hv specially attaining 2!.'8 miles hourly in the morning.

40,000 FEET UP

BALLOONIST’S FEAT PROVES FATAL. NEW YORK, Nov. -1. Ati Sparta, Tennessee, Captain Hathorn Gray, an army balloonist, evidently a victim of high altitude suffocation, was found dqnl in a balloon in a tree top. Gray .‘left Belleville, Illinois, yesterday, in an attempt to break the world’s altitude record for balloons, using an army bag of 80.000 cubic feet, indited with hydrogen. The dead pilot’s log was found tightly clasped in liis hand. One entry read: “Blue sky. sun very bright, sand all gone, iorty thousand feet; music gone, antennae out.” Another entry ran: “Threw out last at 40.000 feet. The existing record is 31,424 feet. PROPOSED FLY. • LONDON. Nov. 0. Jn the event of Hinkler and Macintosh (cabled on Oct. Ist; making a successful non-stop flight to India, the% propose making another non-stop stage to Singapore and a third non-stop to Darwin, hoping to accomplish the distance in lit) flying hours.