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Aviation History
1914
1914 - 0368.PDF
EDDIES. You saw the little paper gliders at Olympia, of course I I mean the Cellon loop-loopers. You were no doubt one of the number to the amount of over a thousand who bought one for three-pence, and so added your mite to the Desoutter fund. They were good value, were they not ? They were beautifully made, and they looped the loop in true Hucks style, and you would have bought one for the price wherever you might have seen them, and consider you had your money's worth, apart from any help given to a deserving cause—so would most people. Here is a letter received by friend Barr:— " Dear Sir,—For the enclosed piece of paper I was charged 2,d. at the Olympia Exhibition by the persons in charge of your stall. If you are aware of the fact, well and good, but if not, I don't think it right the public ought to be done. I may mention I was not the only one who had to pay it, "Yours sincerely." Nearly ^10 was added to the Desoutter fund by the sale of these little gliders, so, as the correspondent observes, he was not the only one who paid, thank goodness! xxx Progress in aviation is reported from New Zealand, in a letter just to hand from J. W. H. Scotland who came to this country last May to learn flying, and was Mr. J. L. Hall's first pupil when he started his school at Hendon. He is now engaged by the New Zealand Aviation Co., Ltd., just formed to give flying exhibitions in that country. By the same post, strange to say, came a letter from J. J. Hammond, also from New Zealand, these two being the only two flyers at present there. Mr. Hammond is flying the Government I.C.S. Bldriot and Mr. Scotland his own 45 h.p. Caudron, purchased from Mr. Ewen, and which he says is going fine. We are always sorry when pilots leave this country and go abroad, but with a company formed to give exhibitions, and only two pilots in the colony, there should be a good opening for skilled flyers. XXX To loop or not to loop, it seems, is no longer a question—all pilots will loop. The microbe responsible for " aero-loopitis " must have been (about in full force at Hendon last week, when no less than five usually sedate pilots went rolling about in the air on one afternoon, and all for the first time. Carr set the ball rolling, and the fever soon spread to Noel, Strange, Goodden and Hall, who one after the other went up and made their initial loops. On Saturday they were at it again, sometimes two or three at a time, in fact the air seemed full of machines turning job to follow them seems to have /* :*<* flerohafitfis _ a now over, so much so that one had in their evolutions. Looping become part of the ordinary business of flying, and it is quite possible that before very long looping competitions will be seen, or perhaps on finishing a race every pilot will be required to loop on crossing the finishing line, as a sign that he has completed the course. They do it very low down, too. Pegoud set the altitude of safety at some three thousand feet, but it is no unusual thing now for machines to be turned over at altitudes of only two or three hundred feet, and there is no longer any difficulty in seeing exactly what takes place. XXX A tube lift is not the usual place to interview celebrated pilots on their latest achievements, but the journalist is no respecter of places, so that he gets his copy. Con sequently when Salmet stepped into the lift at Leicester Square with me this morning, I tackled him on his Paris-London trip straight away. He told me he had a good trip, but that after leaving Folkestone he was much bothered by the mist which, owing to the altitude at which he was flying, made it very hard to follow his route. The first place he really recognised with any degree of certainty was the Staines reservoirs, and then he had been flying about so long that he had run short of petrol, and had to come down to replenish. The amount of flood water all over the country also bothered him a good deal when looking for the Welsh Harp, and even when he had located it, he could not find the aerodrome for some time. Asked if he was going to stay at Hendon, he told me that he was then off to Paris again to bring over the waterplane—asked if he wanted a passenger, he treated me to one of the Salmet smiles, and disappeared Charing Cross way. XXX It reads quite like a film plot—that' of a detective chasing in a waterplane a steamer that had left port with a wanted man on board, yet this is exactly what took place recently in America. A negro boy, it appears, had stolen a valuable diamond brooch from the hotel where he was employed, and was en route for Bermuda when the detective heard of the theft and the flight of the offender, and by wireless the captain of the steamer was made aware of what was happening, and the hydro overtook him twenty miles at sea, when the steamer lay too whilst the detective went on board and secured his prisoner, who was then strapped in the machine and treated to a flight back to land to be dealt with by law. Truly, what with wire less and aeroplanes, the lot of the transgressor is hard, and a free flight is but poor compensation, xxx " The Mahdi is dead—It is not so difficult to get to Khartum as it once was "—and " if Mr. McClean is coming to England in his aeroplane, he will probably never get here at all." These mighty words of wisdom from Mr. Justice Darling in a case of Hare v. McClean. That the Mahdi is dead and that it is not so difficult to get to Khartum as it once was, is news of about equal importance. The gibe at the prospect of an aeroplane never reaching this country from Egypt, shows the inroads that a knowledge of aviation has made on the judicial understanding—or is it simply one of the sup posedly huge jokes which emanate from the bench on occasion ? " WILL o' THE WISP." Stop Thief' 368
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