PERILOUS FLIGHT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3860, 20 October 1928, Page 4

PERILOUS FLIGHT.

NAIROBI TO LONDON. PICTURES OF PRINCE’S TOUR CARRIED. LONDON, Oct. 17. The race to bring the first pictures to London of the visit of the Prince of Wales to Nairobi was won by the King’s Cup winner, Captain W. L. Hope, who accomplished the perilous journey of 6000 miles in ten days. Captain Hope nsed a Gipsy Moth aeroplane. . He was unconscious for two days owing to sunstroke —the heat at Atbara was 122 degrees in the shade—but he pushed on in a dazed condition over the flood country, where engine failure would have meant instant death. A dust storm forced him to fly low over the dreaded Nuer district. Hostile tribes endeai-oured to spear • the passing aeroplane. He burned out his exhaust valve, which he replaced in a desert workshop. Captain Hope arrived at Alexandria in an exhausted condition, after a night flight against headwinds, and bundled his aeroplane on board a departing steamer. He had sufficiently recovered at Brindisi to retake the air. Captain Hope encountered ram and gales when nearing Paris. He also ran into a fog and collided with a huge bird which smashed the propeller and damaged a wing. He requisitioned another aeroplane, and alighted at Croydon days ahead ol his rivals.