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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1928-03-22, Page 3Joy in Australia At Rinkler's Safety Aviator Who Flew From Eng- land Says lie Feared Only Europe's , Fogs i Aided By Arabs in Desert London. --England, like Australia, was overjoyed at news which arrived recently, that Bert Hinkler, the Aus- tralian airman reported missing after' completing his record flight front Eng - lead to the Antipodes, was safe. According to a Weekly . Despatch cable the deluge were received with jubiliation in Sydney and announced in Bundaberg, HinkTer's native,:town by the ringing of joy bells. The airman's destination after leaving Port Darwin on -the Northern Australian coast, where lie landed after his fifteen and a half days' flight from England, was. Cloncurry—the half -way stage of a 1,600 -mile trip to Bundaberg. He was forced by dark- ness and a blinding dust storm, how- ever, to land near Brunette Downs cat- tle station. Through, faced with a strong headwind he came down, with- out mishap and resumed the long reach to Bundaberg •the next day. Slept Under a Windmill He slept ander a windmill until MY - light flew to Alexandria, a cattle sta- tion, tation, for breakfast and later reached Camooweal, a Queensland cattle, cen- tre, which has been made an Airport. The news of his safety was tele- phoned to Hinkler's mother at Bun- daberg. She had waited all night at a friend's telephone for word of him. Bundaberg. had prepared it great wee- Skipper Wins Acclaim byGamble come for its hero when he arrived and "taxis his airplane up to the front gate of his mother's house." In a dispatch to The News of the London Has a Smash AT UNUSUAL ACCIDENT AT EMPIRE'S CAPITAL. Tram took a tumble and 30 people were injured in London when a trans from Tooting to the Embankment left the rails at Belham High Road and turned over. World Hiukler telegraphed that his first day's night from London was the one he feared most and felt that success was certain if he could only clear Europe and its fogs. Itome was a welcome sight. "After that," :he says, "for a long time 1 seem to remember nothing but endless stretches of desert. Once I sighted a group of Arab tents with tethered cancels. 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 With Surf to Speed His Cargo Hailed as West Coast Hero- for "Easing" Lumber Ship Across Bar With Margin of 2 Feet Under Keel; Owners Enriched While Rival Carriers Waited Hoquiam, Wash.—Over Grays Har- degree, The lumber -loaded ship was bor bar the surf heaved and seven eased quietly on again, until the next big lumber -laden carriers waited in- swell was met. On and on, for forty side for a smooth channel across two minutes, over the two miles of bar miles of treacherous black water to with but a couple of feet under the the open sea—but one skipper, 0. Bel- keel, the West Mahwah worked like lesen of the West Mahwah, nosed to- an aggressive football team seeking ward the sand at half speed. yardage. Aground a million dollars There was twenty-seven feet of worth of lumber would be useless in water over the bar; the West Mahe wild salt water; but safely over and wait drew twenty-six. Captain Belle- fourteen hours ahead of its rivals the sen watched the swell rolling in. Be- lumber carrier would be` making and then they helped me with the fore his ship could ride it he signaled money for its owners'so Captain Bel - clearing. A few minutes later I for slow speed with helm over to least is rated along the West Coast was again pushing on over the desert 'make the wave broadside, to a slight as the newest hero. and then at last came the stony wastes of Palestine. Three Impressions of India "On India 1 remember three things —blistering heat, air currents that threw us about Iike a shuttlecock and endless crowds of kind-hearted pec• ple pressing hospitality upon us Whenever the East Indies are men- tioned I shall think of rainstorms and my gallant little machine plowing on through rain so heavy one couldn't see the ground. "And then canis the coast of Aus- tralia, a clearing in the jungle, a na- tive hut and mosquitoes, droves and droves of them. There was a hasty liking up from a dump of gasoline tins and only 1,000 utiles remained between meand home. "The last stage from Bima to Port Darwin I will never forget. I flew far hour after hour over an unbroken expanse of sea with not a ship in sight, guided only by my compass and estimating the drift by guesswork. Al- most to the minute I calculated the loom of laud appeared on he starboard, it became sharper the near it grew until I .saw Bathurst Island, the first glimpse of my native soil for eight years," New Radio Station Proves Success H i gt h - p owered Broadcast Heard in Many Hither -to r "Dead" Spots Toronlo,--C"anada's new high-power- ed radio station CKGW made its de- but recently. Several hunched • tele- granis, cablegrams and long distance telephone messages were received while the station was broadcasting stating that the program was coining through quite clearly and in good vol- unte. For the first time hi the history of Canadian broadcasting, Hawaii. re- ported by cable that they were get- ting good reception, • Other points heard from were St. Johns, Newfound- land, the Maritime provinces, British Columbia, Los Angeles and San Diego, California, . Vort yWortth, Texas; and 1Vla t�i, •1i'lorida, as well as innumer- abie Intermediate epics. A large number. of "dead" spots in Ontario, whioh have so far beau' un- able to .get reception ,from Toronto and Montreal, also reported that the broadcast was clearly audible. In fact, tite station., covered all of the ILS, and Canada. It operates on a wave length • of 312,3 metres, with, 5;000 watts capa- city. The transmi'ng station Is.lo- cated at Bownna.nville, attd the studios are in 'reroute. The broacleasts to date have been away above the average for Canadian elections and the announcer has a reel f .vnd voice but is inclined to be a bit faiaitotte. British Deplore Big Prices Paid For Old Armor Collection in Tower of . Lon- don Suffers Because of Inability to Compete With American Bidders Rare Pieces Come to U.S. 1111.041.11.1...110 Only Recent Additions to English Store Gained by Transfer From Museum While the other national collections are, year by year, enriched by the ac- quisition of works of art and histor- ical specimens of -great value, the armories of the Tower et London, for various reaso.us, have remained in statu quo for a considerable period, says ,"The Times," London, In the middle of the nineteenth century the admission fees to the armories were earmarked Tor a purnhase grant, and from this pieces of great interest were acquired at sales, notably the Brocas sale in 1834, the Bernal sale in 1855, and at the dispersal of the col- lections' of the Earl of Shrewsbury, 1857;' of Baron Peuker, 1858, and of Bron de Cosson, 1893, the last pur- chase being a pistol at elle Gurney sale in 1898. • Of later years the fantastic prices given by American Collectors for armor and weapons have rendered competition in this respect quite im- possible, and the magnificent armors of the Earls Of Cumberland and Pena broke, made in English workshops by the great master Jacob Haider,' of Greenwich, have been -allowed to leave the country without protest, while during the same period large sums have been raised to preserve the worst of foreign painters for our national collections. The last int - portant • additions to the armories, were the fine pieces which brined part of armors• already est the Tower that the King transferred from the Royal Armory :at Windsor in 1914. For near)* 100 years the little- known. Rotunda Museum on Wool. wioli Common .has sheltered several examples . of outstanding interest which wore placed there at .s tizno .when the Tower was so overflowing with war stores'that no room Could be, ound for any addllons to the armories. These pieces were ac- quired early- in the nineteenth cen- tury, and were added to by General Leroy, who ,purebased some' fine ex- amples of fifteenth century armor at Rhodes in 1856. Collection Transferred During the present year the Conte mittee of the Royal Artillery Instit i tion, who have charge et the Rotunda, were approached with a view to transferring these specimens from the Rotunda, which is not easy of access, to the Tower, where they would be seen by large numbers of the general public. This transfer was agreed to, as the Royal Artillery In- stitution have rigbtly considered that' in this respect they are trustees for the public, and that the 'education of the public in the best and most con- venient manner is of the first import- ance. The first acquisitions include a fine suit of the early part of the sixteenth century, russeted, with bands of gild- ing. It is considered to have belong- ed to the Due d'17ze, and according to a tradition, far whicia ho authority can be found, it was worn by the Chevalier Bayard. The leg armor is of excep- tionally flue workmanship, but the whole suit is of such small propor- tions that it must have been made for a youth of slight build and can hard- ly !have belonged to such a mighty champion as Bayard. Of the helmets in this section of the transfer the fluted armet of the middle of the six- teenth century stands out as a superb example of the a.rmorer's craft and will rank with the finest specimens of its period. 'There are several other helmets of interest, and a great shield vainplate weighing over thirteen .pounds, richly engraved. A very rare piece is the tailguarcl for a horse, originally^ fastened to the steel crup- per. It is fashioned in the form of a monster's head, and the skill dis- played suggests that it came from the workshop of one of the master armorers of Germany. There is also a fine chanfron, or armor for a horse's head, of the middle of the sixteenth century - The weapons and firearms are good and useful acquisitions, especially the latter,•whioh ate skillfully inlaid and show engraved wheel locks of fine workmanship. The next item in the collection is one which has become a household word among all collectors and students of armor—the famous "Brocas" tilting helm of tike first years of the sixteenth century, if not earlier. This was purchased at the Braces sale in 1834 tor $30, and at the present day its market value would run .well into ''our figures, Baron de Cosson has described this helmet as probably English and "per-, haps the grandest jousting helm in existence," and certainly for practical• donstruction and dignified lines and form it would be 'ifcult to find its equal. Other Rare Examples The actual provenance of the Rhodes armor is vague, for from Gen- eral Lefroy's autobiography we ]earn merely that it came from the Castle of Rhodes. It must have been the ! whole or part of a store left by the Knights Hospitallers when they were driven out by the Turks in 1522, for. all the pieces may- be dated in the fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries. The most important pieces are the sal -1 lades, of which there are four or live Britain Builds Altitude Fighters Challenges the United States' to Turn Out Better , Planes - 3 -TYPE MACHIN. Special Attention to Securing Fighting Airships with Machine Guns London. --Great Britain has ehai- ienged the effort of the 'United States to build super -altitude fighting planes, Already, as if in answer to the "re- cent contract which the U,S, Air Ser- vice has placed wattle the Curtis Com- pany for lighters capable of attaining an altitude of eight miles, the air ministry has inaugurated three com- petitions designed to improve fighting airplanes. Tlie three types of machines in the competition are: The single -seated fighter, The "interceptor fighter," whose special duty will be to deal with in vading aircraft. The multiple gun 'lighter. To capture orders for these ma- chines, every military aircraft com- pany in Great Britain is busy on de- signs, In some eases construction of experimental machines already hag begun. Firms which hitherto have concentrated on production of sea- planes and flying boats are turning their attention toward construction of righting land planes. Great Britain's ' fastest aircraft re- cently—the Schneider Cup race win- -._ ter—is a seaplane. It maintained an IBritish Births are Falling Below Low Mark of 1927 London. — Not only was last year's birth rate in England the lowest on record, but the rate is still falling. Detailed figures for the last three months of 1927 show that the births registered correspond to an annual rate of 15.4 per 10,000, which is lel below that recorded in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. If is the lowest birth rate recorded for any quar- ter. varieties, and an early armet, which is a rare example of such a helmet re- taining the brass "vervelles," or studs, ( to which the camail of mail was at- e taclted. The sailades bear armorers' 1 marks, one being that used by the famous Missagiia family of Milan. On !these hedtuets are fount] several orig- inal rivets fashioned in a distinctive fashion. There are also a large num-. ber of breast and back plates bearing the graceful fluting peculiar to the fifteenth century before Maximilian and his master craftsman Conrad' Sensenhofer had introduced the+deep cl:aneli.ng which at the present day is known as "Maximilian." Of this' average speed of 218.49 miles over a 200 mile race, while the Italian sea- plane which holds the world's speed record averaged 296,94 miles an hour in four trials over a four -kilometer •conrse. Both records are far in ex- cess of any speed ever attained over similar courses by a land airplane. "Higher and faster"'is the watch - !word of the air ministry, and firms which cannot produce fighting ma - I chines which, with full equipment, ! can,attain a speed of more than 200 (miles an hour and climb to 20,000 feet l or more in a few minutes, are be- lieved to have small prospects of get- ting government contracts. 1 Special attention is being given to i production of fighters with five and six machine guns. These will be two- ( seaters in which the pilot will operate !two guns, and the observer three be :four. It is understood great progress ( is being made in the devlopment of this class of fighter, but details of the new machines are being kept secret. It is known, however, that their specifications are based on the expec- tation that they be used in air battles fought at altitudes of five, six and seven miles, and that all theplanes will be fitted with super -charged ma- chines that will enable them to main- tain speeds of at least three miles a minute at these lofty altitudes. —7 -- latter type of armor there are three' breastplates, one of which for sheer metal working is magnificent, the, deep chaneling and the fine roping at the margins being undoubtedly the work of a master. The late Sir Guy; Laking in his monumental work on 1 European armor, writing of tbis breastplate, says: "The flouting and roping are superb, and the suit to • which it belonged must have been nn - paralleled an its simplicity and bold-; uess." There are also fine graceful leg pieces, elbow pieces and some early pauldrons, or shoulder defences, of Italian style, excellent and rare ex- Toot, Toot!" Wait: Off: of the armor of the fifteenth "When Is a hat not a hat? Don't century, and a splendld "Gothic" know—give it up." chanfi on- "When it becomes a girl. ADAMSON'S ADVENTURES—By 0. Jacobson 'GLAD 7th MEET YOU Sensational Speed By Aero Engine Italian Claims "Theoretical Speed" of 625 Miles An Hour London.—Attaining 12,000 revolo, tions a minute. an aero engine, which will make a "theoretical speed" of tin miles au hour, and an "effective speed" of 470 miles an hour, has been designed by Signor Narcisco. Lonflhin. of Venice, Aviation experts are ex- pecting interesting departure$ from the prevalent constructional details since eo type of engine .now known can be made coinpat•t enough to reach such a. tremendous velocity. London Tubs' Have Drop- ped 24 Per Cent. Since 1904 Eighteen hundred and forty "pubs" have been closed in the London area since the Licensing Act of 190.1 went into effect. That is 24 per cent, of the "pubs," or saloons which existed in 1904. The timber continues to decline annually, to the discomfort of Own- ers of licensed premises who are cla orin8 for the repeat 0t tha (ttCt ]1 oh the grcuhcl than further reduc- tion is not necessary. "Pub" ownel',s are seise endeavor- ing to have the closing horn's al- tered in suck a manner -that they will be uniform throughout the London area. At presont ntany public 'houses must close at 10 at might, while thoso in neighboring boroughs ntay remain open till 11.