TO FOLLOW HINKLER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 335, 21 April 1928, Page 9

TO FOLLOW HINKLER

WING-COMMANDER MANNING FLIGHT OUT TO SYDNEY British Official Wireless RUGBY, Thursday. Wing-Commander Manning, of the Royal Air Force, will shortly attempt a solo flight from England) to his birthplace, Sydney. It will be a private venture, and Commander Manning, who has been released on half pay at his own request, will use a Westland Widgeon light monoplane, which is his own property. The machine has a 30 h.p. Cirrus engine, of the same type as that used by Hinkler in his recent flight from England to Australia. Commander Manning has no desire to compete with Hinkler’s effort, although he hopes to arrive in Australia in less time than a steamer would take. The route will he across the Mediterranean from Marseilles to Tunis, via Sardinia, along the North African coast to Egypt, and thence to Iraq, and along the Persian Gulf to India and the Dutch East Indies. Commander Manning was a medical student at the outbreak of the war, but joined a cavalry regiment and learned flying privately in 1916, when he was at Home wounded. Afterwards he was transferred to the Air Force, in which he received decorations for conspicuous gallantry.