PIONEER FLIGHTS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 April 1929, Page 8

PIONEER FLIGHTS

THEllt TIIUE MEANING

(Auckland Star)

There are still people who say “Why do men risk their lives in attempting useless Rights?” If it were not for the daring pioneers many of the inventions the world uses to-day as a matter of course would not have been perfected. People do not always realise how rapid lias been the progress in long(light aviation. It seems only the other day that we were wondering whether tiie Atlantic would ever be fiown, and to-day both it and tlie Pacific have been traversed. British aviators have played their full part in pioneer flights. Sometimes we forget that it was two British, flying men that first crossed the Atlantic—Lieutenants AI cock and Brown. In 1919 these two veteran Royal Air Force officers, who bad seen serservice at the front, flew a VickersVimv twin-engined biplane from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Ireland. That 1960 miles flight was an epic of aviation—the world owes a great debt to these two English airmen. Gonsidering the limited carrying ability of their ’plane, as against that of present-day monoplane designs with air instead of water-cooled motors, the feat is outstanding in the history of trans-Atlantic flights. Fifty years hence some aeronautic historian will comment on the extrairilinarv courage and imagination that spurred aviators of the early twentieth century to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in machines as quaint and primitive to him as are the pictures of Magellan’s caravels to us, says the A.A. Nows Service. Alcock and Brown, Lindbergh. Byrd, Chamberlain, Koohl, Fitzmaurice, von Huenefeld, Amelia Earliart—lie will marvel at the temerity that made it possible for tliom to voyage over two thousand miles ol water in machines never designed for ocean flying. And then ho will come to the machines oi his day and point out the influence which long-distance flights of the pust had in the design of the ships which will then enable Americans to spend their week-ends in Paris, when Berlin and London people will lie able to reach New York in a day.

• YVe, of this day and age. will live to see this come to pass, and as we are living in the day which will forecast the aeronautical future of tomorrow. lot us pause a bit to consider what those flights mean ,to aviation and see what had been accomplished. The list of worthwhile flights is surprisingly long. in 1923 an American hotel owner. Mr Rav-mond Ortoig. offered a standing reward of '£sooo for a flight to fire public imagination. This flight was to he from New York to Paris. Now York to Paris! The mail in the street could grasp that distanceit was familiar to him. So many .(lays of travel by ship; so many hours by train.

So it was that in 1920 several expeditions wore organised. Rene Fonek was chosen to pilot a huge ship built especially for the flight. This failed in taking off and burned the crew. One after the other, the aspirants qualifying for the classic of the air met with disaster. Two French fliers. N’lngossor, the greatest of all war aces, and a partner, Coli, took off from Franco in a westerly direction in an effort to heat Byrd and the Bellam-a-Lovine syndicate. They were never heard of again.

Then a twenty-live-year-old country lad naimed Lindbergh electrified the world by crossing the United States in two jumps. Immediately attention was centred upon this unknown lad who dared to undertake, single banded, a venture wliicli bad thwarted tbo. best known aviation experts ol all the world, and bad claimed mamlives. While others waited and watched for their ’‘break” in the rainy weather, this lad stepped to bis ’plane one morning and quietly said. “[ ernoss T’ll go. He was off! And thirty-three hours later the dramatic saga of Lindbergh was complete. Why all these flights? What do tliev accomplish? The aeronautic historian of to-mor-row will point to the great work done by all these pioneers. They have risked all in the cause which will on ■ day gather, through their efforts, enough knowledge of conditions out over the ocean, to enable the designers of to-morrow to build ships which will fulfil the prophecy made earlierknowledge which will one day bring Berlin and London and New Yor! sc to each other.