HINKLER’S GREAT FLIGHT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3761, 1 March 1928, Page 3

HINKLER’S GREAT FLIGHT.

London, February 27. In answer to a question in the House of Commons, the Air Minister, Sir Samuel Hoare,. said: “I cannot at present add much to the information given in the Press regarding Captain Hinkler’s outstanding achievement, which I am glad to see given" the prominence it undoubtedly deserves.” The Minister detailed the records broken, and said that Hinkler's total flying time was 134 hours, and therefore if the flight had been continuous, day and night, it would have occupied only five days fourteen hours. Ta-king the whole time spent in the flight, including night and day halts, the distance worked out at thirty miles an hour. Taking the time of actual flying the speed averaged 89 miles an hour.

“The fact that 12,000 miles were covered without repairs,” he said, “is a striking testimony to the reliability of the machine and engine. . One of the most striking features of the flight is that the machine used was a standard AvroAvian with a Cirrus engine, which had been in use since 1926. The only alteration before the flight was the incorporation of extra tankage. A machine of this type complete, apart from extra tanks, costs £730, and approximately Hinkler’s consumption bf petrol and oil cost only £SO. These figures are a striking indication of the great potentialities of aircraft for communications over the vast stretches of the Empire, over which other means of communication are either non-existent or relatively undeveloped.”

ESTIMATE OF COST. HINKLER SAYS £55. Brisbane, This Day. •Hinkler, interviewed at Bundaberg, said that the flight to Australia cost him £55 approximately. It was difficult to work out the exact cost because the price of petrol varied from 1/6 a gallon in Britain to 3/6 at Basra. He did 25 miles to the gallon, and used 450 gallons. He used very little oil. SCULPTOR’S OFFER. , London, February 27. The Czecho-Slovakian sculptor, Otakar Steinberger, desiring to commemorate the Australian national hero, has decided to make a bronze bust of Hinkler, which he is asking the Royal Aero Club to hand to Hinkler. ONCE IN NEW ZEALAND. A WJanganui lady, who was at one time on the nursing staff of the Auckland Hospital, supplies a local paper with the following particulars of the early career of Mr. Bert Hinkler.

About fifteen yeai’s ago a man named Harry Stone was 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 Cornwell, the latter having a racing car capable of doing eighty miles an hour. They made a tour of New South Wales and Queensland, holding races between the car and the ’plane, and while in Bundaberg, met a boy named Bert Hinkler, aged about 17, who was then trying to make himself an aeroplane.

Harry Stone was impressed with this boy, and brought him to New Zealand as junior mechanic. They had the ’plane and car in Cornwall Park, Auckland, and had their stunts advertised, but they never came off. The idea was to race the car against the ’plane. In the course of a trial both Cornwall and Hinkler were thrown out of the car, Hinkler having some, ribs broken, while Cornwall escaped with minor injuries. Hinkler was taken to hospital, where he remained for three weeks. Stone took his machine to Napier, .and that was the end of his New Zealand stunt, which was a financial fiasco.

This was Bert Hinkler’s initial start in the flying game.