GLOBEMASTER FLIGHTS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29016, 3 October 1959, Page 17

GLOBEMASTER FLIGHTS

Delay Because Of Bad Weather

A United States Air Force Globemaster, which was to have taken off from the Christchurch airport at 10 p.m. yesterday, is now scheduled to leave at the same time this evening. Bad weather betwen McMurdo Sound and Christchurch caused the delay. It was decided just after midnight to set back the flights 24 hours.

Pine trees from Canterbury are among the cargo in the Globemaster which will begin this season’s airlift of 2100 tons of cargo for the American Antarctic bases. The trees will be used as markers for the approaches to the sea ice runway on McMurdo Sound. The Globemaster will carry 50 Navy and nine Air Force passengers. i

After unloading at McMurdo Sound, which is expected to take between three and four hours, the Globemaster will return to New Zealand.

On Sunday, at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., two more Globemasters will fly south with cargo and passengers.

Before the dropping of supplies over the bases at the South Pole and Byrd Station begins later this month, the Globemasters will carry about 600 tons of cargo to McMurdo Sound to prepare for the drops. This will leave another 1500 tons of cargo to be taken south by the aircraft. A Navy Neptune, which left Christchurch early yesterday, landed at Cape Hallett at 9.43 a.m., picked up the three men from McMurdo Sound, who were stranded there when the landing gear of their Dakota collapsed when landing there last month, and then flew on to McMurdo Sound, touching down at 10.3 a.m.