HINKLER'S CAREER

Hokitika Guardian, 29 February 1928, Page 1

HINKLER'S CAREER

LEARNING- TO FLY. WANGANUL Feh. 25. A Wanganui lady who was at the time on the nursing staff of the Auckland .Hospital supplies the following particulars anent the early career of Captain Hinkler, who lias arrived in Australia after a wonderful solo flight from Croydon:— “About fifteen years ago a man named Harry Stone arrived in Auckland with an aeroplane. He advertised himself as ‘Wizard Stone,’ and his machine was a monoplane. He took it to Australia in order to give exhibition stunts, and while in Melbourne picked up with a man named Percy' Cornwall, the latter having a racing ear capable of doing 80 miles an hour. They made a tour of New South Wales, holding races between the car and plane, and while in Bundaberg met a boy about 17 years o! age named Bert Hinkler, then trying to make himself an neioplane. HarryStone was impressed with this hoy, and brought him to New Zealand as junior mechanic. They had the plane and car in Cornwall Park, Auckland, and they had stunts advertised, hut the stunts never came off. “The idea was to race the car against the plane. Tn the course of a trial both Cornwall and Hinkler were thrown out of tho car. the latter having some of his ribs broken, while Cornwall escaped with minor injuries. Hinkler was taken to the hospital, where he remained three weeks. Stone took his machine to -Napier, where he can'? a crash, and that, was the end of his Now Zealand stunt, which was a financial fiasco. This was Bert. Hinkler’s initial start in the flying game.”