NEW AERODROME FOR NELSON

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22358, 23 March 1938, Page 12

NEW AERODROME FOR NELSON

ORIGINAL FIELD MAY BE OPENED IN MAY

PROPOSED EXTENSION TO COST £2OOO

(From Our Own Reporter,)

NELSON, March 22.

A stream will be diverted, and an area that was until January of last year sandhills and lagoons has been levelled and reclaimed, to make the new Nelson aerodrome, of which the originally planned field of 80 acres will be opened for traffic, it is hoped, by the middle of May. So far the Government has spent £35,000 and the Nelson Harbour Board, which is the controlling authority, £12,000 on the work: and the extension of the aerodrome, involving the levelling of the outfields and the expenditure of probably another £2OOO, was investigated to-day by the Minister for Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple). When completed, the landing field will have a total acreage of 138, but the latest proposals will have to be first authorised by the Cabinet. So far 60 acres are in grass and another 20 acres in top-soil. Four runways, each of no fewer than 1000 yards, are being provided. The original estimate of the cost as a relief work was £165,000, and the employment of machinery has brought the Government’s contribution down to £35,000. “And that £170,000 would have been wasted by attempting to do the work by antiquated methods, with wheelbarrows and long-handled shovels,” commented Mr Semple, when, with representativs of the Harbour Board and Cook Strait Airways, Mr John Wood, Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department, and Flight Lieutenant E. A. Gibson, the aerodrome engineer, he inspected the progress of the work. “If man-power had to handle this work all the soil would have been blown out to sea before they could do the levelling.” Work for Machinery

Many of the sandhills levelled by. an 18-ton carry-all scraper, drawn by a tractor, were 25 feet in height, and at one stage the contractors for the levelling and reclamation had machinery valued at £20,000 on the site. The shifting of 634,000 yards of spoil was involved in the aerodrome construction under the original plans, which the Minister has now been asked to extend, and 521,000 yards have been handled to date. The record output for one month was 70,000 yards, the machinery working three shifts daily. As the engineers are anxious that the new aerodrome, described by Mr Semple as being one of the best in the Southern Hemisphere, shall be opened before the winter, the completion of a weir at the mouth of a diversion race to carry a stream now having its outlet across one of the runways, is being expedited. The Stoke aerodrome, headquarters of Cook Strait Airways, is troublesome in winter through springs coming up, ■ and its situation close under the hills makes flying difficult. When the original landing grounds, which have open approaches from the sea. a.re ready, the hangar will be transferred to it from Stoke, and Cook Strait Airways will have till the end of the year, when its lease of the present ground will expire, to shift its full equipment. When the extension of the aerodrome by the levelling of the outfields was being discussed with the Minister, it was stated that the company contemplates using aeroplanes with higher power.