African aviation pioneer dies

A veteran of the pioneering days of African aviation, Victor Smith, has died at the age of eighty-seven at his home in South Africa.

In the early 1930s Mr Smith was part of a group of pilots who risked their lives in frail, open-cockpit aircraft to map routes that cut journey times within the continent, and between Africa and Europe.

In seven-thousand hours of flying, Mr Smith made more than twenty forced landings.

And in 1932 he received a hero's welcome in London after narrowly failing to break the record of eight-and-a-half days for a flight from Cape Town.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service