28 MAY 1932, Page 2

Miss Earhart's Achievement

Miss Earhart (Mrs. Putnam) is to be congratulated on the courage, the good fortune and the efficient Wasp engine which enabled her to fly the Atlantic, from New- foundland to Ulster, in thirteen and a half hours—the fastest time yet recorded. She had already flown the ocean with two men ; but she is the first woman to make the perilous passage alone, and only two men,

Mr. Lindbergh and Mr. Hinkler, have achieved the solo flight. It is evident from her narrative that the feat, now repeated for the sixteenth time, still remains dangerous. The exhaust of her engine caught fire, the petrol gauge leaked, and the height recorder failed so that she had to mount high into the clouds and fly blindly for hours lest she should unwittingly descend too near the sea. And all the time she was maintaining a speed of more than 120 miles an hour. Women like Miss Earhart and Miss Johnson have shown that thee can rival men in the navigation of the air.

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