Leila Adair was the undisputed queen of the air. In a
time when airplanes were still a distant dream, Miss Adair’s antics as a Lady
Aeronaut were not simply a travelling curiosity, but the cutting edge of New
Zealand air travel technology. Taking her act to the road in 1894, Miss Adair became
famous nation-wide for her gravity-defying hot air balloon flights. Crowds
would gather in public parks and town squares to watch her take off and fly
across the town, before letting go of her balloon and parachuting back to
earth. When she arrived at the Parawai Racecourse in March 1894, the people of
Thames were keen to see this spectacle for themselves.
The plan was simple. Starting the process of inflating
the balloon at half-past three, Miss Adair was expected to begin her ascent at
four o’clock. She would rise to four or five thousand feet above the
racecourse, where she would perform a trapeze act on the bar hanging below the
balloon. She would then leap back to
earth, using a small parachute attached to her wrist to slow her fall. The
balloon would slowly follow as it ran out of hot air.
Over a thousand locals paid the shilling entry fee to
witness this feat from the racecourse, but many more took up vantage points along
Parawai Road or on the hills. The Thames Star reports the ‘fully 200 or 300
[people] remained just outside the course entrance’ rather than pay the entry
fee. The Thames Advertiser was particularly scathing in its condemnation of the
‘meanness’ of the Thames onlookers whose conscience was ‘of an extremely queer
order,’ who chose not to ‘sustain their reputation either for generosity or
even fair play.’
Just after four
o’clock, the balloon was inflated. Watching the balloon inflate was in itself a
‘decided novelty’ to the gathered crowd, but ‘in consequence of the
carelessness of some juvenile sight-seers three or four large holes were made
in it, which were not observed in time for repairing before the balloon was
almost fully inflated.’
Miss Adair forged ahead. With a cheery cry of ‘good
bye,’ she began her ascent, while a concerned crowd watched on. The balloon
gracefully ascended about a thousand feet, high enough to be seen from Hikutaia
and Tararu. But then, a gentle breeze pushed it across the Kauaeranga River,
and over the hill. The balloon then began to lose height. Seizing her chance,
Miss Adair let go of the trapeze bar and landed safely among the ti-tree. She then crossed the river and walked back to
the racecourse. Apologising to the crowd
for an anticlimactic ending, she was greeting with applause and cheering from
the spectators.
Unfortunately for Miss Adair, her flights tended to regularly
not go as smoothly as she would have hoped. In Hamilton East, she took off from
Sydney Square (now known as Steele Park), and crashed minutes later into an
open drain in nearby Cook St. In Christchurch, she collided with a wire clothes
line and dislocated her wrist. In New Plymouth, according to the Thames Star,
the balloon ‘caught fire during the process of inflation and was burnt to
atoms.’ Crossing the ditch to Sydney, her flight from Clifton Gardens ended
with her crash-landing into the harbour and being found ‘unconscious and almost
dead’ by two passing fishermen. These frequent disasters damaged her reputation
as the ‘Aerial Queen,’ but Leila Adair was a true pioneer of New Zealand
flight.
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