WOMAN’S GREAT FEAT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5429, 27 May 1929, Page 2

WOMAN’S GREAT FEAT.

FLIGHT ROUND AFRICA. ALONE FOR 15,000 MILES. After flying alone for 15,000 miles, Lady Bailey landed in her Moth aeroplane at Croydon Aerodrome one day in January. She flew the last stage of her journey from Berck, near Boulogne. Alighting skilfully on the snow, she immediately taxied towards the areodrome buildings, as if fleeing from the crowd which swept across the field to greet her. She came to a stop on the tarmac, and in an instant she and her aeroplane were lost to view in the crowd. Curiously enough, when she left England last March the country was under snow, and since that time she has crossed the equator twice and accomplished an aerial “ramble” of a kind never before attempted by a woman pilot. The first to greet Lady Bailey were her mother, Lady Rossmore, her two daughters, and her brother. Lady Bailey left Stag Lane on March 9 in her own Cirrus-Moth. Her route outwards was via Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Naples, Cantania, and Malta. From there she was escorted for 100 miles by R.A.F. machines, and then she went on to Benghazi, Aboukir, Cairo, Luxor, and Aswan. From Aswan to Wady Haifa she flew through heavy sandstorms and intense heat. Atbara, Khartum, Malakal, Nimule, and Tabora were the next places, and at Tabora she crashed badly, but without injury to herself. A new machine was procured, a Cir-rus-Moth of the same pattern as her original one, and she went on to Broken Hill, Livingstone, Bulawayo, Pretoria, and Beaufort West, reaching Capetown on April 30. Her historic greeting to her husband, Sir Abe Bailey, was : “I am afraid I am a bit late.”

For the return journey Lady Bailey chose the largely unsurveyed West Coast route because thd Sudan authorities refused her permission to fly over Sudan. She left Capetown on May 12, but instead of flying straight home she spent some time on the way visiting places she wished to see. She flew over British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish territory. “There was never any question of getting lost,” said Lady Bailey. “For the Congo region excellent maps were given to me by three Belgian airmen. Before reaching the Congo, however, I had only small-scale maps for a time.” She denied that she had flown over unexplored territory. “There were, however, large stretches of dense forest over which it was necessary to fly by compass. One gets to rely upon one’s engine. My longest stages were about six hours, but they were exceptional.” Asked whether she had to give much mechanical attention to her plane and its engine, she said : “Very little. Just one or two things I had to do myself, and here and there I was helped when necessary.” Lady Bailey replied with a decided affirmative to the question whether she bad enjoyed it and had found it interesting. She had flown alone “because it was necessary to fix an extra tank where the passenger* usually sits; but I never had to camp out alone. Of course, if you were walking through Africa you would ; in an aeroplane a 600-mile stage is common. The weather is nearly always good and the visibility wonderful. The forests were the worst parts.” “The log of her ten months’ journey,” says the “Morning Post,” “should offer a myriad episodes to thrill the blood of those earth-bound Dianas who still await the opportunity to take wing in the air age of which Lady Bailey is so noteworthy a ‘pioneer. From the day in early spring last year when she decided to pay her husband a visit by air, her weeks were crowded with adventure, often hazardous, sometimes merely vexatious. “We recall how, on the homeward journey, when she was refused permission to fly unattended over the Sudan, she airily altered her course and flew alone for ten days over untracted forests, landing triumphantly at Loanda, on the west coast of the African Continent, a thousand miles from her starting point. Taken as a whole, this flight is a pioneering achievement which will long hold high rank in the annals of British aeronautics.”