TWELVE AIRPLANES CRASH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 413, 23 July 1928, Page 1

TWELVE AIRPLANES CRASH

HAZARDS OF KING’S CUP RACE LIEUTENANT HOPE THE WINNER ' (United I*.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) (United Service)

Received 9.5 a.in. LONDON, Sunday. TWELVE machines crashed in the King’s Cup air race. The only person injured is a passenger in R. Whitehead s machine, which was forced to land, and which overturned near Bury St. Edmund’s.

The pilots agreed that the conditions were deplorable. It was a battle for life from Newcastle, through the mist - shrouded mountains. Miss Spooner was within an ace of crashing on a peak when an upward current shot her 50feet, throwing her from her seat. Two machines collided at the Nottingham airdrome, and another taxied into a motor-car at the start. The race resulted as follows: Flight-Lieutenant W. L. Hope (de Haviland Moth) 1 C. Unwin (Bristol Fighter) .. .. 2 Miss Spooner 3 Captain Broad (Moth) 4 The winner’s average speed was miles an hour. The full distance was 1,097 miles. Summerson (Avro Avenger) did the fastest time. Miss Spooner won the trophy for members of light plane clubs.

later Miss Spooner, the only woman pilot in the contest, arrived. Miss Spooner wins the Siddeley Trophy, consisting of a challenge cup and £l5O, offered to competition among light airplane clubs. She might have won the race but for a mistake. From Renfrew' to within a few miles of London she led. but then she lost 10 minutes by following the wrong railway line. Unfortunately one flyer, Mr. Warwick, is missing. He failed to arrive at Renfrew on Friday night from Newcastle on the last stage of the first day’s racing. Yesterday afternoon four airplanes set out from the Renfrew' airdrome and searched the lonely moorlands of Southern Scotland, no trace of Warwick’s machine was found. Last year’s race for the King's Cup was flown over a course of 540 miles with Hucknall Torkard Airdrome as the starting and finishing points. It resulted in a victory for the übiquitous Moth private owner’s and touring machine. The winner was Mr. W. Lawrence Hope, flying a Moth with the earlier Mark I type of Cirrus engine. He beat the second machine, the Westland Widgeon 111. monoplane, entered by Mr. Robert Bruce, and flown by Captain W. J. McDonough, by 10 minutes, with the Vickers Vixen, entered by Captain Douglas Vickers, and flown by Flight-Lieut. E. R. C. Scholefield, third. The winner’s time for the course was 5 hours 50 minutes 14 seconds, and the speed averaged 92.8 m.p.h., with a maximum of 96. S m.p.h. on one circuit of 180 miles. Previous results of the race are:— 1922. —Won by F. L. Barnard in a rD.H.4, 350 Rolls Royce (23 entries, 21 started, 11 completed course). 1923. —Won by F. Courtney in a “Siskin,” 285 h.p. Armstrong Siddeley (17 entries, 14 started, 7 completed). 1924. —Won by Alan Cobham, In a D.H.50, 230 h.p. Siddeley (10 entries, 10 started, 6 completed).

1925.—Won by F. L. Barnard in a ‘Siskin,” 285 h.p. Armstrong Siddeley 15 entries, 14 started, 3 completed).

1926. —Won by Captain Hubert S. Broad in a 30 h.p. de Havilland Moth (14 started, 5 completed). 1927. —Won by Flight-Lieutenant W. L. Hope in a de Havilland Moth (17 started, 6 completed).