12 JULY 1924, Page 11

The recent progress made by the British and American World

Flight expeditions has re-awakened interest in that undertaking, and at the moment of writing the Americans are at Baghdad, while the British Expedition is at Tokyo. Since the Iong and enforced stay of the British Expedition at Akyab it has made excellent progress, and one of the greatest flights of all time stands to its credit. It must have been a dramatic moment when Squadron-Leader MacLaren saw the American flyers through the mist off the Burma coast,' although the Americans did not see him. Nothing in Jules Verne was more wonderful, and -yet it is only twenty-one years since that memorable day when Wilbur and Orville Wright first succeeded in getting their heavier- than-air machine off the ground. * * * *