AIR GIPSY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 99, 17 December 1931, Page 2

AIR GIPSY

BERT HINKLER ? A FLYING VAGRANT AND SUNDOWNER OF THE CLOUDS 1 LONE HAND AVIATOR If Herbert John Louis Hinkler, Bu'ndaberg's greatest citizen had n6t made himself a cqntinuous -nuisanfce to the august Lords of the Admiralty, in 1914, Australia would to-day have had no flying sundowner — r.d vagrant joyrider, nor stirrer-up of genuine heroworship, and a peerless aviator would have perhaps been tinkering about a country garage, says a writer in the Sydney "Sunday Sun'." ' No Australian, not even the great Kingsford Smith, can conjure up such feelings, and genuine air-minded-ne'ss,5 among the people, a's thiS "itinerant airman. • Hinkler has always been the Gipsy axnong his fellows, restless, and •acquisitive, not of persohatl ffame, tcdt adventure, and this trait has been taken to the heart of the" nation. Here to-day and gone to-morrow has ever been his slogan. ' • • One moment he is the highly paid test pilot for a big English firm, putting everything from big superbombers to crazy little seouts through their paces — just fresh from the ulueprints with all their idiosyncracies' &nd man-killing propenslties hori'ibly llatent. He is the chap who tests 'them in the air and takes the wrinkles out. At another moment he bogs up as tho pilot of a British Schiieider trophy plane in America. That he is put out of the race is due to the fact that a rubber-necking Yankee drives a speedboat across-his path, the wash upsetting him during take-otf. Though Hinkler may have been thought a nuisance at the Admiralty, hb. persistehce in getting a cbmmission was nothing to'What he displayed wnen bearding millionaire Tom Sopwich, constructor of the famous war maehines, for a job, after the Armistice, wlien good test pilots ' were ' going begging. Hinkler knew his own worth and was determined that others shohld know it. Before, he had simply been a cog in the great Royal Air Force- — of no particiilar merit above the rest of the gang. He succeeded, and Avros took him from Sopwith. Even then he wanted to fly a SopwTh Pup to Australia. Funny thing. He has never really lost his love for' small planes. First he startled the world by starting out to Australia w:th a Baby Avro. He flew non-stop to Turin, and there gave up with a' burnt-out engine. Later he flew this machine non-stop badc to Bundaberg, to see mother, from Sydney — a phenomenal flight at the time. And how has the world rewarded this cavaiier of the clouds? His work with the R.N.A.S. gained him a D.S.C. (something connected with shooting a sub. in the Channel full of hoies) ; Mr. Bruee " saw he got the A.r.C., and honorary rank of Squad-ron-Leader, R.A.A.F.; ahd now his meteoric dash across the South Atlantic (where the French had failed) has earned for him the French Morx*occan Government's distinction - — seldom awarded to a foreigner — the Morruecan Cross. ''Gipsy" Hinkler, having taken the Atlantic in his stride, will now try to befcter Kingsford Smith's Pacific flight. Will he again play a lone hand?