REAL THRILLS IN SPORTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 177, 17 October 1927, Page 11

REAL THRILLS IN SPORTS

TENNIS, golf and FOOTBALL STUNTS IN MID-AIR THRILLS and spills— ye»; the average Now Zealander after he has gazed at the car racing at Muriwaj Beach or at the motorcycle races on some of our racecourses, reckons he knows all about both of these. But when he learns what takes place on the other side of the world, where airplanes play an important part in the sport of to-day, he realises that the thrills and spills produced in some of our sports here, are rather on the mild side. Think of hurdle racing: in airplanes. It really seems ridiculous. Yet an exciting contest of this kind was witnessed recently at Bournemouth. Flying a few feet above the ground each pilot made his machine "leap” a series of obstacles in a graceful rising and falling movement. Strange as it seems to the uninitiated, many ground sports have now been adapted to airial conditions. TENNIS AND GOLF An exciting tennis match was once played on the upper wings of an airplane in full flight. With a net stretched between them, two daring aviators returned each other’s service from the baselines of this extraordinary court, which were represented by the extreme ends of the rocking wings. Although both men had their feet roped down, the sport was highly dangerous. Aviators in fast machines played a game of aerial golf at Roehampton not long ago. A w’hite circle was drawn on the ground to represent the hole, and instead of balls each pilot was given several small bags filled with flour. Dropped from a height of a hundred feet, the backs burst like bombs when they struck the ground, this enabling the judges to decide exactly how near each competitor came to "holing out." Target practice is a favourite sport with many aviators. Large targets with bulls, inners and outers are drawn on the ground, and the object of the contest is to drop bombs in the centre. Far more thrilling, however, is the variation of this sport in which human "bombs" are used. When each pilot has attained the position he considers most suitable, he signalls to a companion. The latter immediately leaps clear of the airplane and, drifting earthward beneath his parachute, tries to score a bull with his own body. A HUNTER’S DREAM Shooting big game from airplanes is a sport that few hunters have pictured even in their wildest dreams. Yet French pilots sometimes indulge in this pastime in Northern Africa. Marking down their quarry from a distance, they fly over the animals and pick off the finest heads at their leisure. Duck shooting was carried out on an extensive scale by aviators not long ago. In certain districts these birds had multiplied at such a rate that they threatened to become a plague. To cope with the nuisance, aviators were employed to chase the ducks immediately beaters had raised them from their feeding grounds. Following close behind the birds, they shot them down with machine guns. Even a form of fishing has been carried out from airplanes. French pilots were employed recently to destroy huge schools of porpoises which were working havoc in the sardine fisheries. The method used in this case was to hurl hand grenades at the fish as they rose above the waves. But a far more astonishing aerial sport than any of those mentioned will become popular if t.he plans of certain English experts materialise. These men propose to play football in the clouds. A large bladder filled with gas, so that It will just support itself in mid-air, will be used as a ball. The winged footballers will then "kick" this “ball” with special appliances projecting from their machines.