LEAVING FOR BUNDABERG

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 287, 24 February 1928, Page 9

LEAVING FOR BUNDABERG

TWO 800-MILE HOPS By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. Reed. 9.5 a.m. DARWIN, Thurs. Mr. Bert Hinkler is resting today at Port Darwin and overhauling his machine after his recordbreaking flight from England. He proposes to start at dawn to-mor-row for Bundaberg, his home town, where he intends to settle. The airman hopes to do this journey of 1,675 miles in two hops. nising that good weather favoured Hinkler, says that his distinction is to have brought the flight to Australia down to the level of ordinary, everyday commercial traffic. The “Dally News” says: “It has brought perceptibly nearer the realisation of a regular system of air communications between distant parts of the world.” The “Daily Telegraph” says: “The reputation of the light airplane is thoroughly established by this flight, for all purposes of ordinary travel.” “The Times” says: “Hinkler’s exploit was concerned not so much with the discovery of possible mechanical improvements in airplanes and their engines, as the proving of what can be done with the type of aircraft

already in common use, and costing in the open market only about £7OO. “By completing the joiyney at a total running cost for fuel of about £SO he has shown, as Flight-Lieuten-ant Bentley showed by his journey in a Moth airplane to the Cape, and Captain Neville Stack and Mr. Bernard Leete by their earlier light-air-plane flight to India, that the world’s journeys by air are within the reach of men of a sporting turn of mind without prohibitive capital expenditure, provided only that they have the necessary qualifications as pilots. “More than anything else he has opened the eyes of the public to the possibility of establishing an air mail to Australia.” According to a message from Paris, the “Petit Parisien” says that Hinkler’s flight provides interesting information regarding low-powered aviation. The “Echo De Paris” declares that his achievement assuredly contributes to the launching of airplanettes.—A. and N.Z.