Croyden to Bundaberg

The small plane taxied right up to the fence of the home at Bundaberg, Australia, last week. Flyer Harold (Bert) Hinkler stepped stiffly out and kissed his mother waiting there. That was the goal of his record-breaking solo flight from Croyden, England, to the Antipodes.

While the huzzahing crowds waited and as he gulped the warm meal his mother had set for him, he told her what he had superlatively done: 1) the longest one-man continuous flight; 2) the longest flight in a light airplane; 3) the fastest journey from England to India; 4) the fastest journey from England to Australia; 5) the first non-stop flight from England to Rome.

He showed her a map:

Mi. Mi.

Rome (from, Croyden). . . . . .900 Victoria Point, Burma. . . . . . . .450

Malta, Mediterranean. . .420 Singapore, Straits Settlement. . . . . 750

Tobruck, Cirenaica .650 Bandung, Java. . . . 600

Ramleh, Palestine . .650 Bima, Dutch East Indies. . . . . . . . . 850

Basra, Irak . . . . . .800 Port Darwin, Australia . . . . . . . 970

Jask, Persia . . . . . . .700 Bundaberg, Australia . . . . . . 1,600

Karachi, India. . . . . 600

Cawnpore, India. . .600

Calcutta, India. . . .600

Rangoon, Burma. . .750

He recounted his Sindbadic journey. Between Croyden, which he had left three weeks ago without fuss, flurry or publicity, and Rome there was bad fog. He was glad to get beyond Rome. "After that for a long time I seem to remember nothing but endless stretches of desert. Once I sighted a group of Arab tents with tethered camels. A whole day I was lost in Libya and as I was trying to clear a space in the desert for a take off, a party of Arabs cantered up. It was an anxious moment. There were friendly overtures on my part and then they helped me with the clearing. A few minutes later I was again pushing on over the desert. . . .

"Of India I remember three things--blistering heat, air currents that threw my plane and me about like a shuttlecock and endless crowds of kind-hearted people pressing hospitality upon me." Calcutta's port . . . Burmese forests . . . Singapore, where mud hindered his take-off and made him almost strike low buildings. Over Melanasia, and the East Indies tropical rains swept around him.

At Sundra Straits, he curvetted over the mountains and jungles of Sumbawa, Dutch island. There was a clearing near its fortified city Bima. He darted for it, to feed himself and fuel his plane. Mosquitoes met him, "big as airplanes," and natives and the few whites of the city. As weird to them was he, as they to him. Thick rain made noon night. He needed a flashlight to examine his machine. All was well for the longest span of his air tour--970 miles entirely over blank, grey water from Bima to Port Darwin on the north coast of Australia.

Not a ship did he see. "I flew for hour after hour over an unbroken expanse of sea, guided only by my compass and estimating the drift away from my course only by guesswork. Almost to the minute I calculated, the loom of land appeared on the starboard. It was Bathhurst Island, the first glimpse of my native soil for eight years." Then a confident straight away for Port Darwin on the Australian mainland, 15 1/2 days from Croyden.

However, Bundaberg, home and mother were still 1,600 miles away over continental Australia. Half way from Port Darwin was Cloncurry. He tried to reach there. But darkness and a sandstorm forced him to land in the bush, at Brunnette Downs, a cattle station. He slept under a windmill. Then onward, toward Bundaberg. . . .

What they said of the flight:

"I feel as I imagine Lindbergh felt when he landed in France."--Harold (Bert)Hinkler.

"Hinkler's flight is the greatest single-handed feat in the history of aviation. Hinkler's program day after day was maintained consistently, regularly and efficiently."--Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce of Australia.

"Capt. Hinkler has outclassed Col. Lindbergh's achievement. His flight is the most encouraging and inspiring that has taken place and has relieved the whole British race of the feeling that it has been outclassed in recent times in air developments."--Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Stevenson Home, onetime Chancellor of the British Exchequer, in Canberra, new capital of Australia.

"Hinkler's remarkable flight has added a new and brilliant chapter of Army aviation."--F. Trubee Davison, U. S. Assistant Secretary of War for Aviation.

I am the proudest woman in the world."--His wife.

This flight was not the first by which he had created air records. In 1919 he made the first 650-mi. non-stop flight from Croyden to Turin, Italy. In 1920 he flew the 730 miles from Sydney, Australia, to Bundaberg, where he was born in 1892. Three years ago he was in the U.S. as a member of the British group competing unsuccessfully for the Schneider Cup.

A garage is just right for the Avro-Avion that Flyer Hinkler has been using for his flights. It is a one-man plane with collapsible wings that fold back and special undercarriage that makes it easy for one man to swing it around. The one used in this Croyden-Bundaberg trip is a standard model, with 28-ft. wingspread, and a 30-h. p. Cirrus engine. Its cruising speed is between 90 and 100 m. p. h.; its cost about $3,000.

On this flight Flyer Hinkler paid approximately $250 for gasoline, meals, and lodging. Ship passage from London to Australia costs about $450 and requires 32 days--twice the airplane time.