LEAP IN SPACE

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 38, 17 March 1930, Page 5

LEAP IN SPACE

PARACHUTIST'S DARING DISPLAY AT HAWKE'S BAY AERO CLUB GROUNDS. CAPTAIN WHITE DELIGHTS THE CROWD. "There he goes!" This simultaneous release of pent up excitement on the part of the crowd of several hundreds assembled on the Hawke's Bay Aero Club's ground at Longlands on Saturday signified that Captain Jonassen, the "King of the Air" had made his widely advertised leap from an aeroplane flying at a height of 3000 feet. At the time of the leap, the Hawke's Bay and East Coast Aero Club's new Gypsy Moth, with Flying Officer Olsen at the controls, was at a point approximately straight above the Maraekakaho turn-off and the intrepid parachutist calculated that from this point the wind drift would carry him the distance of a quarter of a mile so that he could make a safe landing in the club grounds. He was, however, using a new parachute, one of the R.A.F. standard type with a much smaller spread than the one to which he had been accustomed and in consequence the speed of his fall was far greater than he anticipated. He came down safely in the gun club's grounds, near the H.B.A.T. Co's aeroplane shed and except for a minor ankle injury due to his heavy landing was unharmed. From the time the machine reached the Maraekakaho turn-off until the time when the captain took his leap seemed a virtual age and having leapt from the plane in the course of a loop. the black speck that was his body seemed to drop for an almost intermin-

able period until a flutter of white above him indicated that his chute_ was opening successfully. With his body swaying gracefully in the wind, the parachutist then floated slowly and easily down into the paddock, whence he was carried back to the Aero Club grounds by car and given three hearty cheers for his feat. It had been intended that the captain should give a display of aerobatics on a trapeze suspended from an aeroplane, but at the last moment the authorities stepped in and forbade it. The club was therefore compelled in this respect to disappoint its patrons. Captain T. W. White, the club's pilot-instructor, stepped into the breach, however, and took the Club s Gypsy Moth up, to give one of the finest displays-of aerobatics seen in Hawke's Bay. Climbing swiftly to about 1000 feet, he banked and swept down at speed towards the crowd, flattening out and zooming up again to give an exhibition of the half-roll, the stall turn and then nine loops in quick succession. He ended a display which was fully demonstrative of his skill in the handling of a plane 'by flying sideways — one of the most difficult feats in the aviator's repertoire. His was a great display and was thoroughly appreciated by the crowd. Later in the afternoon Captain White in the new Simmonds Spartan and Flying-Officer Olsen in the Gypsy Moth took a number of passengers up for short flights.