EARLY FLYING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 661, 13 October 1933, Page 6

EARLY FLYING

TRIALS OF PILOTS SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF BYGONE MISHAPS PARIS AIR EXPRESS Having been fly ing on the air routes since their inception, Captain Olley has vivid recollections of the ■early days of ithe Paris air express, write Harry Harper and Robert Bernard in "Pearson's Magazine." •"One trip," Captain Olley says, "lingers ini my mind; which is hardly surprising, I suppose, seeing that I made 17 forced landings after leaving London and-hefore getting to Paris ; while by the time I neared t'he French capital it was so dark that I had to finish up, as best Lcould,, in a football field. Trouble with the p.etrol feed was my problem. It meant that after only a few miles' flying I had to- alight and pump petrol by hand from, one tank to another. But 17 forced landings on one fiig'ht to' Paris! That gives an idea of the difference between air transport in early days and the organised airways of to-day, when the reliability of our British airliners is such that the latest figures for dependability stand at just about 100 per cent." There is another story which Captain Olley tells. One evening he was flying from Paris to London a big twin-engined air express of an early type. By force of habit when nearing the French coast he gave a glance back from his cockpit along the hull of his machine. An astonishing sight met his gaze! But here1 are his own words : "I saw that one of the cabin windows had been pushed op'en, and that a man passenger was half out of it, struggling apparently to leap from the cabin .in mid-air. The nlechanic who was with me in the cockpit rushed through' into the cabin, where he found several other passengers struggling with the man who was still trying to force his way through the window. "I piloted the air express lin a glide" towards an intermediate landing station which lay just ahead; but before the aircraft reached the ground the struggling passenger had b.een dragged back into the saloon, and was being held down in one pf the seats. "Directly I had brought the machine to rest I went through to question the man. By this time he was apparently in his right senses again, and was full of apologies. He said he was afraid he could not account for his amazdng conduct, except to say that a sudden impulse had made him spring up from his seat and try to get out on to the wing of the machine as he had seen photographs of trickflyers doing."