AVIATION

Hokitika Guardian, 22 September 1931, Page 5

AVIATION

GERMAN PLANE. :

TO PLY TEN MILES H IGH. I United Press Association—-By Electri* -, ’ Telegraph,i—Copyright!) : . '• „ t * >’ ■ BERLIN, September 20. The world’s first stratosphere aeroplane is now, ready in Germany to commence a pioneer flight into. ; the thin-air region that "is ten miles above the earth, and that .haß hitherto been penetrated only, by Professor Piccarde, the Belgian’s balloonist.T A i" *> ■ The machine lias been built in the strictest ; secrecy at the Junkers Works , at DessaU. It has a : wingspan of twenty-five feet. It has an airtight ’ cabin with reinforced walls. The designers are confident that it .is the fore_, runner of a fleet of machines capable o-f speeding through the stormless upper atmosphere and of rapidly linking up Europe and America.

SMITH SETS OUT. ON FLIGHTTO ENGLAND. MELBOURNE, September 21. Air-Commodore. Kingsford Smith left this hiorning for Dodhadatta, and he reached Parafield Aerodrome, near Adelaide, in,four and a-half hours. He landed to remedy a defective oilfeed pipe, but resumed his journey half ah hour later. , , V, • GRAF ZEPPELiN’S FAST OCEAN. FLIGHT. PERNAMBUCO (Brazil),, Sept., 20. The Graf Zeppelin arrived here on. Sunday on a non-stop flight; frpm Germany.’. —

FLYING BOAT'S:EXPLOIT. RUGBY-,-.September 19. The performance of a Royal |Air Force flying boat ’which, (flew on Wednesday from Gibraltar to Plymouth in a single hop of over 1200 miles, is exciting comment among nircratt experts. The machine is' a 1500 horse power Sesquiplane, styled a- Saro .7. . and is manufactured by Messrs Saunders and Roe. It completed a cruise to the East and hack of 8300 miles, between August 15 and September 16. with a total flying t time of 90 hours, making an average spped. of 92 miles an hour. It carried a crew of six. ...

At Algiers the float successfully rode out at anchor a gale reaching 60 miles' an hour. ' v . .