SEAGULL.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17633, 9 December 1922, Page 8

SEAGULL.

AEROPLAN2NG IN PAPUA HISTORIC PBEFOBMANOB. The harbour of Port Moresby, local seat of Government in Papua, is locked .to seaward by a surface-reef. The basin itself is sui rounded on three sides by hills. During some eight months of the year the south-easterly blow* all mosquitoes effectually into the Indian Ocean—or elsewhere. They do not return until the season when the north-westerly assists them back again. In this place arrived about mid-win-tor Captain Andrew Lang, air pilot, and his flying-boat Seagull, also Air Mechanic Hill, nurse of that craft. The airmen returned to Sydney recently, that they returned at all, says Captam Jjang, is. due to the devotion of Hill to jus job.' Their flight over the Fly River delta, some 70 miles or so across it, was,. ab they discovered, nothing but courting death, so treacherous and violent are the air currents. "It is at such times," says the pilot, "that, if you know you can trust your mechanic at his job, you can pray to heaven with a livelier faith.'' Captain Lang went to Papua to pilot Mr Frank Hurley in an ambitious plan i to explore up the Fly River from the ! air, and with the cinematograph. The effect of heavy tropical rams, together with exposure of the Seagull's fabrio to the heat, frustrated that plan. The Seagull'was flown from Port Moresby, via Kairutu (Yule Island) and Kaimare (on the Purari River) to Daru Island, (west of the Fly delta), and. thence to Thursday Island, where she was packed up and loaded into the Montoro 1 Svdney—grievously in need of complete overhaul. Mr Hurley secured cinematograph views from the air of Hanuabada village in Port Moresby.and some of the "coast northwards. His further exploration may be undertaken b3 launch or on foot. Captain Lang left him at Thursday Island. Whether'the plan could ever have ; succeeded to fly up flie great and almost unknown river which drams' ail central New Guinea, is. a debatable point. Captain Lang laments the damage done to his craft in conditions of climate, for which the Seagull was never built. But he has "rung the bell," the Americans say, in one respect. He has pilotod the first flying machine to rise m New Guinea. Hie log should be worth much money to the Australian Defence Department. In 1914 a couple of seaplanes were sent with the Australian fleet to Rahul. They were never used—were never even removed from their cases. Two years ago H.M.A.S. Melbourne carried a seaplane with her on a cruise in those latitudes. That seaplane also did not fly—was unable to leave the water, Captain Lang can answer a few technical questions now on fhe powfcr required to aircraft enginei in that rarified atmosphere. So the Seagull h»s made some wnall point in history. When she arrived at Port Moresby whites and natives were sceptical. The whites were inclined to regard askance two flying men who donned overalls, and worked in the sun at putting the Seagull into commission, J instead of requisitioning natives fori this manual labour. Besides, they re-j "called the earlier and futile attempt at I the Melbourne's seaplane to fly in those | latitudes. The natives, too, did not believe the Seagull could fly. They were confirmed in this belief .when on* morning the craft, being ready for trial, was put under power. The engine was started. Captain Lang taxied her up to the bay and back again to see how the engine answered, but did not attempt to leave the water. The population looked on and politely scoffed. Then, next morning, without any advertisement, the pilot started her engine again. The spluttering noise drew everybody out of doors. The Seagull taxied off and suddenly rose steadily to some hundreds of feet, wheeled about and flew perfectly over the town, on into the south. Excitement was intense. Every nian left what he wao doing to rush out into the roadway. One native who was painting a shed roof, looked up in amazement, gasped, fell off the ladder on to fiis head, pamt all over him, and still could only stare and point at the marvel'. For nearly an hour shops and offices were left empty. Anyone so minded could have robbed half a dozen stores, but every human being was out in the roadway staring into the sky. "When the Seagull ie.r turned to her moorings," says Captain Lang, "we came down nicely, I shut off the engine and there was a dead silence as we moved to our buoy near the wharf. The wharf was black with hundreds of natives. Then, as if by pre-arranged signal, the silence was broken by a quaint but concerted cheer from the whole wharf. • - , "And whnt do you think the natives callan aeroplane?. Why 'aeroplane,' as clearly as that.' And they don't talk English, or even 'pidgin' much in Pamia." . . It. is not Captain Lang's opinion alone, but that of o&oials in Papua, that the ScaguTs flight along the coast from Port Moresby to Darwin has confirmed the status of the white man in. the native niiud. At Yule Island, missionaries and natives alike rrceived the Seagull with enthusiasm. Some of tho Papuan.! were carriers come down from, the inland mountains, who will probably go back to tl«e interior now and become greater: than chiefs-because of their 'tales of how they saw the white man flying in a motor-bird. At Kaimare were some old men among the villagers who wanted to attack the So-i gull. "They had something on their conscience," says Captain Lang, "and they believed the. Seagull was a spirit come t6 avenge somebody's death and 'puri-puri' them. At least, eo we were told by a rascal of our party named Vaiafco.. . But the .young men knew whites when they saw them, and counselled against violence.. Yaiaka- went to a meeting of the village at a big meeting-hut and heard the debate. Next morning we saw them from the Seagull coming out towards us in a fl'et of canoes, all armed and dre&:ed in fea-thers—-put the wind up us, too—but when they drew near we saw they had a pig to present to us in the bows of the leading cance—a sign that it was peace. The flight over the. Fly delta, was a hair-raising business—especially with the warped and strained fuselaae of the Seagull under 14 days' heavy rains (12 inches in all) at the Purari The air disturbances were unexpectedly dangerous, and were caused, the pilot thinks, partly by tho strong delta currents (which could be clearly perceived from 1000 to 2000 feet up), and partly by the high mangroves or the delta. 'Scud would suddenly arrive from nowhere, and the pilot had' to fly underneath it (at 1000 feet or* so), in order to see his. course. In the air-pockets the machine would tilt over in alarming fashion against all controls, or at other times drop flat like a stone. Once past the delta, flying over the sea. was safe. The Seagull made a good 1 flight to Thursday Island, and there again was received with great cheering.