Flights & Flyers

Holt & No. 37. After the crash of the R-101 decimated the ranks of Britain's high aviation officers, Air Commodore Felton Vesey Holt was made Air Vice Marshal, placed in command of air defenses last month. (He had been in charge of the staff which examined the wreckage of the R-101.) Last week Air Vice Marshal Holt reviewed the flying forces at Tangmere Airdrome, Sussex, flew in a Moth biplane with Flight Lieut. Henry Moody. One of the ten planes escorting him dropped out of place, edged close to the Moth, brushed wings with it, sent it crashing. Vice Marshal Holt was killed; so was Lieutenant Moody--37th member of the Royal Air Force to be killed by accident this year.

Majesty's Mail. Fortnight ago the first mail plane of Imperial Airways' new London-Australia service (with which addition the company serves four continents) ran out of fuel near Kupang on the Island of Timor, cracked up in a forced landing. Last week Australia's air hero Charles Kingsford-Smith flew from Port Darwin across the Timor Sea to Kupang, in his famed Southern Cross, and returned with the mail from the crippled City of Cairo. Not discouraged. Imperial Airways last week dispatched its second Australian mail plane from Croydon, England. By schedule, the flight should take ten days; surface mail takes 28 days.

Farewell. Flying a small pursuit plane at Fort Stotsenburg, P. I., Lieut. Marvin M. Burnside chased after a great twin-motored bomber which had just taken off, to wave "goodbye" to its pilot, his close friend Lieut. Marion Huggins. He had nearly overtaken the bomber when suddenly the backwash of its propellers hit the little plane, flung it about like a leaf, dashed it to the ground. Unaware of the occurrence, Lieut. Huggins flew on to Nichols Field, Manila, there learned that his friend was dead.

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