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aerial post from Hendon to Windsor by carrying more letters than any other aviator. Mr.
Driver is a South African by birth, being born at Maritzburg, and was employed, until
last year, on the Robinson Deep Mines at Johannesburg.
The machines the aviators will use during the meeting will be on exhibition in
the Good Hope Gardens, Government Avenue on Thursday, Friday and Saturday next,
and the pilots will be in attendance to explain the working.
The Bleriot monoplane, which will be piloted by Mr. Driver, is the identical
machine flown by M. Andre Beaumont, the winner of the prize of £10,000 given by the
London “Daily Mail” on the occasion of M. Vedriennes’ benefit at Hendon.
A similar machine was flown by M. Garros at Mexico lately, which is 6,000 feet
above sea level, when he rose to a height of a further 4,000 feet. This same aviator has
made a world’s record on this type of machine and has reached a height of nearly
14,000 feet, or, roughly, about two and a half miles, at which distance the machine was
invisible.

The “Fortnight” was no doubt inspired by the European aviation meetings and

preparations were given continuous press exposure during the weeks leading up to

Christmas. (Fig. 3.6). Weston began “tuning up” flights at Kenilworth Race-course on 4
December and these produced the photograph of the first-ever flight in Cape Town.

(Fig. 3.7).

Cape Times: 5 December, 1911.

WESTON IN THE AIR
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FIRST FLIGHTS
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SCENES AT KENILWORTH
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The “Tuning Up” Process
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The first biplane flights in the Cape Peninsula took place at Kenilworth Race-
course late yesterday afternoon. The handful of spectators – mostly Pressmen – cheered
as lustily as they could when Pilot Weston sailed overhead on his first voyage. The
proceedings lasted scarcely an hour, but both flights were eminently satisfactory.
Yesterday’s trials represented what air people call the “tuning up” process – the
dress rehearsal, as it were, before the exhibition proper. It enables the airman to see that