AERONAUTICS: Airy Epigram

In the mess of epics which the newspapers print concerning bitter-faced aviators who fly grimly across oceans and continents for glory or their mothers there should be no word of a flight which began last week at Stag Lane Airdrome, near London. Not an epic but an airy epigram, it told the story of a rich old man and a charming lady and soldier.

The Rich Old Man was the celebrated Harry Gordon Selfridge who, as everyone knows, worked his way up through Marshall Field’s Chicago department store before leaving the U. S. and setting himself up in England with a huge store of the same kind, a huge house in the centre of London, four children, and many dear friends, among whom the Dolly sisters are surely the most intimate.

Among the rich old man’s four children, is the onetime Violet Selfridge, who is now the Vicomtesse de Sibour.*

Jacques de Sibour was an ace and a great ace in the War, a fact which not everyone knows who knows Jacques de Sibour. On marrying Violet Selfridge it became necessary for him to go to work in the Selfridge store for the rich old man. Thus Jacques de Sibour and his wife lived in Lansdowne House, the grand and picture-filled castle in the centre of London. When Jacques got a two weeks holiday, they toured all about the Mediterranean in a tiny airplane. When they were granted a longer vacation they flew to Abyssinia and built a house in the desperate mountains.

Last week the time had come when the Vicomte deserved another long holiday. He and his wife conferred as to what they should do. This time they had nine months at their disposal−obviously, the proper thing was a trip around the world. Obviously also, if you have been an ace, you understand that the majority of aeronautical accidents are the pilot’s fault and that being up in the air, so long as no one is shooting at you from another plane, is as safe as being on the ground and much more pleasant. Accordingly, the de Sibours would go around the world in a $3,250 airplane which uses 4½ gallons of gas and not quite a pint of oil per hour. It is a blue and silver Moth, named Safari II. The de Sibours will fly only when the weather is right and if they lose their way they will land their little plane most anywhere and get directions. They will be ferried across the largest bodies of water.

The Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Sibour had their hunting clothes sent on to Africa; trunks of tropical clothes together with trifles were despatched to Bombay and Penang. They took with them however in two bags which were stowed into the De Haviland Moth, evening clothes and other proper equipment for polite traveling. At the airdrome, a reporter asked questions which de Sibour answered with a little diatribe on the advantages of aviation. “The running expenses come to $15 per week at maximum. . . . My wife and I haven’t been in a train all year. … If you see an interesting tower or castle on the horizon, even if it is 20 or 30 miles away, you can go over and have a look at it. If you are flying over the seashore, you can fly low and watch people bathing. That is the kind of thing we propose doing. It doesn’t matter if it takes us off our course. We will find it right away again.”

You can’t make a hero out of a gentleman who talks like that. The Vicomte de Sibour and the Vicomtesse climbed into their little plane and started off for some little town in the Pyrenees where they expected to stay a few days.

Also starting from England on a round the world aerial tour was George H. Storck of Jacksonville, Fla., and Seattle, Wash., in a 30 h. p. Avro-Avian seaplane.

* The title really belongs to Violet’s younger sister who married Violet’s husband’s elder brother.