FARM SUPPLIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 200, 24 August 1945, Page 8

FARM SUPPLIES

TRANSPORT BY AIR

EXTENSIVE INVESTIGATIONS r O.C. GISBORNE, this day. Extensive investigations have been made by a Gisborne group into the possibility of aerial transport of fertiliser and other farming supplies to settlers in remote districts. The spreading of fertilisers and seed from the air is also contemplated if difficulties of payload and manoeuvrability in the type of plane can be overcome.

It has been laid down that the cost of the work done by, or from the air, must not exceed the present standard ground level costs. A machine suitable for the distribution side must be capable of handling a substantial weight of material in one load; it must also be capable of operating from a comparatively small area, though, in practice, its distributing flights would be carried on from an established aerodrome where loading and overhaul facilities would be available.

It is obvious that air distribution cannot successfully be operated on small areas; it must deal in big acreages and possibly with groups of landowners co-operating to make use of the service. The question of altitude would enter into the matter, for the larger the area to work over, the higher a machine could operate and more even, under good condition*, would be the distribution.

The bulk handling of fertilisers from the factory to aircraft loading points is also contemplated, and it is hoped in this way that there will be a saving in cost which will bring the whole cost of the job down close to that involved in the surface spreading. Mechanical handling of fertilisers within the aircraft itself will be necessary, it is thought, to eliminate clogging and choking. This is a detail on which some thought has been expended and it is believed that no insuperable difficulty will be encountered.