"These historic voyages spectacularly justified two unorthodox British inventions.
The Mercury made other flights during the year, notably its return flight from America across the Atlantic Ocean and journeys with mails between England and Egypt, which further indicated the feasibility of the composite aircraft idea.
At the start of its flight to South Africa, the sasplane was carrying 45 pounds on every square foot of wing area and 20 pounds for every horsepower of its four Napier Rapier H-shaped engines—a combination of wing-loading and power-loading which had never previously been carried into the air. It was lifting more than one and a half times its unloaded weight.
The record-breaking land planes were Vickers-Wellesley monoplanes of geodetic construction, powered each with a Bristol-Pegasus air-cooled engine. The geodetic construction, invented by Mr. B. N. Whllis and developed by him in conjunction with the Vickers Company for several years past, ranks as a major discovery. This ingenious method of basketwork building is claimed to produce a structure that is enormously strong and is yet exceptionally light in weight—Wireless through Reuter. she refused to do. On her return, passing the same post, she was forcibly hustled into a small room and sustained several severe bruises. Full details are not at hand as yet, but it is understood that the American Con—sulate-General in Shanghai Was been informed of the assault.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.