The sun., 1919-05-19
HAWKER A MASTER
OF ALL AIR TRICKS
Held English Record for
Height and Long Distance
Flying.
MADE 100000 A YEAR
Had Tried and Succeeded in
Landing without
Carriage.

Eight years ago Harry @. Hawker, a
moor young mechanic twenty years old,
vs,t to England from Australia to try
nj, luck in the land Of his fathers. In
March, when he sailed from England for
Newfoundland. he was the highest paid
air pilot in the world, and one Of the
most skilful.
Hawker went to England expecting
10 find work at a bicycle shop. but felt
the lure OF the air before he had been
in the country a year. He entered the
sopwith Aviation works. and in 1919.
less than a year after he had been en-
poyed by the firm as a mechanic, be-
came a pilot. Soon after winning his
license he began TO show signs of ex-
ceptional daring even in the daredevil
fraternity of early niers. In October,
1912, he won the Micheliu trophy for
the longest flight from sunrise to sun
set He remained in the air eight
hours and twenty-three minutes. thereby
beating his rival In the transatlantic
fight Fred Raynham, by three-quarters
OF an hour.
Next year he again took Raynham's
measure, this time beating him by only
derby across country in which he came
In FIRST
flight OF 1,048 Miles.
In the great race around England In
1918, for which the London Dolly Mau
offered a prize of $4,000, mechanical
trouble prevented him from finishing.
He flew 1.046 miles, however, travelling
from Southampton up the east coast of
England across the Firth OF Forth and
over the Irish Sea- He was compelled to
land of the Irish coast twelve miles
from Dublin, and failed to finish the
anal 500 miles
In 1918 he also assembled 1900 feet,
carried two passengers UP II. 900 feet and
three to a height of 1000 feet-no mean
achievement in those days Of crude mo-
tors and flimsy planes. His next stunt
10 gain him wide attention was the es-
Enlistment of q British altitude record
Of 10000 feet in June, 1915. at Hendon.
He took his plane up IN an hour and a
half and shot back to earth in twenty
minutes without any gasolene left in
his tank. The next year he established
a worlds altitude record Of 2S,500 feet,
which held until 1t was broken recently
BY Major Schroeder Of the United States
army.
The greater part of Hawker's feat in
the air are unknown and unwritten.
They came as part OF the days work as
Sopwith test pilot. He Is known to
have made many short dashes and ex-
perimental flights which are not records
because no official time was taken He Is
cool and unassuming but with nerves
OF steel, or without nerves at all.
His Test Mt Brooklands.
His daring and absolute determine
ton is perhaps best illustrated by what
he called a test" at the Brooklands
track in preparation for the transatlan-
tic flight. Realizing how much air re-
sIstance and weight would count against
his chances in the long flight, he deter
mined to dispose of his landing Rs~.r-
wheels and supporting carriage-by
dropping them OF after the start. In or
der 10 prove that this was feasible he
mad the Sopwlth company build him an
exact duplicate of the transatlantic air
plane fitted with a level bv pulling
which the undercarriage would drop of.
Before little group of experts Hawker
ascended. At a considerable height he
pulled the lever and the wheels upon
which the plane rests on the ground
dropped away. He then started for
earth. Despite the fact that a speed OF
about forty miles an hour was necessary
10 keep the plane in the air. Hawker
landed with only a smashed propeller
and cracked lower wing. He himself
suffered bruises, but he had demon
sirated the method OF adding ten miles
an hour to the speed OF his airplane, and
regarded the bruises as OF little conse-
Quence.
For the past three years Hawker
acted as test pilot for the Sopwith con-
Germ, flying anything and everything
lAeir engineers produced and risking
his life dozen times a day In proving
and disproving-the value OF various
machines, AS he received $125 a flight
il has been computed that his yearly in
come was 100000 or more.
Hawker married two years ago and
has six-months-old daughter. He
lives in great comfort at Kingston-on-
Thames, His love OF good engines ex-
tends to automobiles as we'll as air
planes. He has a dozen cars which he
deAghted TO drive himself