AERONAUTICS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2625, 6 October 1909, Page 5

AERONAUTICS.

CONTEST AT BERLIN

United I’kess Association —Copyuight, BERLIN, October 4.

M. Rougier, a French aeroplanist, won the distance, altitude, and passengers’ prizes at Berlin, the amount aggregating £3OOO. Mr. Latham won the speed prize.

MR. CODY’S SUCCESS. Mr. S. F. Cody achieved his greatest triumph at Laffan’s Plain, Aldershot, when he made two flights with a passenger’ . In the first flight Colonel Capper occupied a seat immediately in the rear of Mr. Cody. Amidst great cheering from the crowd the machine started off well and was soon in mid-air. The ■whole circuit of Laffan’s Plain was traversed, and Mr. Cody brought the machine gracefully, to a standstill just by the starting point. Colonel- Capper, dismounting, remarked that he was the first man in England to be a passenger in an aeroplane. Mrs. Cody then came up to the aeroplane and agreed to her husband’s request to fly with him. As she took her seat the aviator remarked, “She is heavier than you, Colonel.” Mr. Cody then made a short, but really beautiful circular flight. In avoiding some children, who were playing, the machine tilted, but was successfully piloted out of the difficulty. At thei end of the flight Mr. Cody turned round and kissed his wife. Mrs. Codv now holds the distinction of being the first lady in Britain to go up in a flying machine. 'Mr. Cody remarked that during the flight she experienced a “glorious sense of exhilaration,” which banished an attack of neuralgia from which she had been suffering. “Though I was not afraid,” she said, “for I should never be afraid to trust my husband’s skill, I was & little apprehensive of bumping at the start, for I bad always had the impression there would be more or less jolting when a machine ran fast over the ground. “Mr. Cody asked me if 1 was ready, and I said ‘Yes.’ Then, apparently nothing happened for a minute or more, and I asked ‘Aren’t you going to start?.’ ‘We have started,’ he replied, quietly, and when I saw the ground skimming away from under us, several yards below. “He made a figure of eight, but I was not conscious of any turning movements. When we came lightly to the ground I was quite sorry it was over. ‘You didn’t take me as far as Colonel Capper,’ I said. ‘Oh, yes I did,’ he replied ; ‘I took you further.’ So I went about six miles. . . “Reallv, the sensation of flying is the most delightful imaginable. It beats motoring altogether, and you don t feel the wind so much. We were travelling at over thirty miles an hour. but I felt no rush of air, and there was none of that jerkiness you get in the best of motor cars.”