NEW GUINEA.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20088, 18 November 1930, Page 14

NEW GUINEA.

MINING DEVELOPMENT. ' AIRCRAFT AS TRANSPORT. [THE PRESS Special BetTlet.j WELLINGTON", November 17. With the development of gold mining in New Guinea, ne w am j heavier service aeroplanes are required for Guinea Airways, Ltd., the firm which was ostablished m order to set up better communication between the cold areas and the coast. Captain A S Cross, managing director of the company, arrived in Wellington by the Maunganui to-day from San Francisco on his way back to Australia and thence to New Guinea. He has been on a business trip to England and the Continent and bought in Germany three new J linker G3l machines, which have been built to his requirements for use by Guinea Airways The machines are of the threo-cngined type, each engmo developing 020 horse-power and they will be tifxpabk* of carrying the heaviest one piece load that has ever been carried by an aeroplane before. Guinea Airways had tw*iii running for i'oiir years, said Captain Cross to* day. During that time it had been carrying passengers and all supplies from the coast to the goldfields, which are situated about 40 miles inland. The country is a difficult one for communication and the only means of reaching the goldfields. apart from aircraft, is by walking. The walk, however, from coast to goldfields takes eight days owing to the nature of the land that has to b© traversed. IJy aeroplane the trip is made in 40 minutes. Up to the present, said Captain Cross, most of the work that had been done on the fields was prospecting and testing the ground. Very promising results had been obtained, and about a vear ago those on the goldfields decided that operations should proceed on a bigger scale. This was tno real reason of his trip home. Larger aircraft were required to handle the mining plant. With the new Junker machines which were being sent to Now Guinea via the Suez Canal it would be possible for single castings, weighing three and a half tons, to be transported from the const to the goldfields. At present the company employed seven pilots, although it would be n«>cessurv to increase the staff as soon as the new aeroplanes arrived. The country over which the company ran its service.s was hillv and heavily timbered. There were I t regular aerodromes in use, of which the four main ones wore large and well-equipped. On the goldfields about 300 Europeans were workinp. Captain Cross himself is a pilot with war experience in the Iloynl Flying Corps and Royal Air Force. After the war he spent two years in the Australian Air Force.