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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1002.PDF
1004 FLIGHT. SEPTEMBER 27, 1934. ARRIVING AT BUDAPEST : Major H. Petre (striped suit) being greeted by the Archduke Albrecht.Miss Constance Leathart, with the flowers, was the only lady pilot to take part in the Pic Nic. sausage over an open fire and danced the Czardas to the gipsy music. Harben and Miss Olney dressed up, and most of us danced too. Afterwards the idea was for us to see the people go into church in their beautiful Sunday clothes, and the Professor had us lined up in good time on a convenient pave- ment. As time went on we remarked that all the people seemed very old and comparatively few. Then a young priest came out and told us the reason—all the young ones had gone to dance at a grape feast. With true Christian forbearance he showed us the way to the counter-attraction. Miskolcz, where we arrived about 4 o'clock, is a manufacturing town of 60,000 inhabitants. Jts streets are wide and clean, and surrounded by red-roofed cottages standing in their own gardens. In Hungary one has this feeling of grace and space, and there are more flowers than one remembers seeing in other countries. As we drove through a village on the way to Lillafiired we saw a grape harvest festival—men dressed up on horses and one with a black face chasing the children. Lillafiired Hotel stands high in the neck of a valley. Lime- stone cliffs rise on each side, a lake above, waterfall through the garden, and stalactite caves beneath. Mr. and Mrs. Pears came up from the British Legation, and we dined and danced and even bathed at midnight. The Hungarians said it was much too cold, but to English standards the water was tepid. Monday.—The Horto Bagy was what many of us had come to see, and we were certainly not disappointed. This is the real Hungary, a vast plain on which one can land anywhere, good hard pasture, though there are swamps in places where later flighting geese come in their thousands. Here the State keeps cattle and horses for breeding purposes. We saw about sixty brood mares of much more Western characteristics than most of the horses one sees about. We heard this strain has descended from a horse left by Napoleon. The Professor next turned to the cattle, which he said were stallions, and on being remonstrated with altered the name to bullions ! The weather was perfect, and the mirage of Fata Morgana doing its stuff all round us. There is a lovely clean little inn .where you can stay for five pengoes a day, but no one does, except for the goose season. Here we had goulash with gipsy music, and danced the Czardas afterwards. Then we were driven back to the aeroplanes and seen off by the Csikos on their horses. The sun was sinking rapidly, and we felt we should never reach the baths. We did though, and it was a remarkable ex- perience—about twenty of us sitting about talking in hot water up to the neck in the open air, evening sun slanting through the trees, Lipton feeling the spout with his toe and getting burned, a splashing match in mid-ocean, then the race through the gardens to the cold pool and a final plunge. Then those who had not already viewed the crematorium were driven to it (it is not used, by the way, as it is against the law in Hungary), and we finished a somewhat physiological afternoon in the mummy house of the Deri Museum. None of us had ever had tea in a museum before, but apparently they don't do it every day. Before dinner we had some mar- vellous Tokay like very light dry sherry. Tuesday.—Back to Buda Pest, with more bouquets, the problems of getting rid of decaying vegetation getting acute. But first Presland wants his compass swung, and everyone gathered round to give advice, a sort of cross between the League of Nations and the Tower of Babel. So it's not very surprising that he is heard asking for it to be done again at Matyasfold. In the afternoon those who wanted to sightsee, sightsaw. Others shopped and bathed. At the St. Gelert are the arti- ficial waves which Eobertson has been talking about ever since he left England. Mr. and Mrs. Houston-Boswell and Mr. and Mrs. Pears nobly devoted the evening to taking us round the night clubs, and we found the Hungarian cham- pagne as good as anything we have had." (To be concluded.) AIRCRAFT TO THE RESCUE The advantages of employing aircraft in surveying flooded areas is indicated by a recent aerial survey carried out in India, when the executive engineer was able, within a few hours, to give prompt instructions, whereas—even had it been possible to go by land—the work would have taken days. Torrential mountain streams in Western Sind are the in- evitable result of heavy rainfall in the Kirthar Range of mountains, and they then bring forth heavy floods. An embankment, called the flood protection bund, is being built on the right bank of the Indus in order to protect the irrigated area from floods. Further, at a point where Gaj Nai, the biggest hill stream, comes out, diversion works are under con- struction. All of which is being done to change the regular flow of the stream from east to south, so that it may find its way to the great Manchar Lake:—the biggest lake in Sind. The engineer in charge of these works, Mr. H. P. Mathrani, was in Karachi when he received an urgent message that the hill floods, which usually occur at the end of July, had come this year a month earlier. Not only were they likely to do considerable damage to the protective works under construc- tion, but also to cause great havoc in the adjoining area. To go by land, all the way from Karachi into the hinterland of Sind, would have taken a considerable time, as the floods had rendered the roads to the affected area impassable, and also because the area was so scattered that the extent of the floods could not be accurately gauged travelling by land. Therefore an aeroplane was hired from the Karachi Aero Club, and, piloted by Mr. Gadgil, Mr. Mathrani flew to the affected area. After an intermediate landing—not without some difficulty owing to the water-logged condition of areas where they wished to land—for engine adjustment, they arrived over the Gaj diversion works. A thorough inspection of the whole area was made, and Mr. Mathrani was able to issue the necessary instructions within a few hours, which, by normal overland operations, would have taken several days. On several previous occasions similar use was made of air- craft, with excellent results—on one occasion a complete sur- vey of the Indus river and the countryside on both banks being made by officials of the P.W.D. and engineering depart- ments of Sind. There is no doubt that—as in the case of forestry survey and patrol—aircraft can be put to good use in this class of work.
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