A British airman last week flew from Egypt to India.
This pioneer of air travel was Major-General W. G. H. Salmond, who commands the Air Force in the Middle East, and who is the brother of the commander of the Air Force in France. Starting from Cairo with five companions, in a Handley-Page which had flown from England to Egypt, he went to Damascus, thence down the Euphrates to Baghdad, down the Tigris to Basra, along the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf to Bushire and Bander Abbas, along the Mekran coast to Charbah, and thence to Karachi and Delhi. His flying time to Karachi, a distance of 2,548 miles, was thirty-six hours, so that his average speed was seventy miles an hour. His journey from Cairo to Baghdad, which by steamer and train would take over a fortnight, was accomplished in two day-flights of twelve and a half hours in all. This wonderful performance, made " in the ordinary course of aerial duty," will doubtless seem commonplace when we recall it a few years hence. The airman can say with Arid, " I drink the air before me," for his engine, if in good order, will run as long as he has petrol in his tank.
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