Fuel Failures In Light Planes

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30682, 23 February 1965, Page 1

Fuel Failures In Light Planes

Several unexplained fuel failures in Aus-tralian-made Vieta Airtourer two-seater monoplanes have occurred in New Zealand.

In Australia, the Department of Civil Aviation has stopped all Vieta Airtourers from flying in temperatures above 80 degress, says a report from Sydney.

The temperature restriction applies to about 100 aircraft. In Christchurch last evening, the regional aircraft surveyor for the Civil Aviation Department (Mr F. Brooks) said there were about four Airtourers in the southern region, which extended south of a line from Kaikoura to Westport. He said that no message of the Australian ban had

reached him, but if the cabled report was true he would expect to receive notification today.

More Airtourers are flying in the North Island than in the South Island. New Zealand Civil Aviation Department officials last evening declined to say whether there had been fuel failures in the type flying in the Dominion) but such failures are known to light-aircraft pilots.

The Australian ban was imposed after reports had been received of a fuel-pressure failure in high temperatures at an airport in Adelaide last week.

The Airtourer was designed by Henry Millicer, chief aerodynamicist of the Australian i Government Aircraft Fac-

tories, as an entry for a light two-seat aircraft held in 1953 by the Royal Aero Club. It won the competition from 103 other designs. There are two Airtourer models in production—one with a Rolls-Royce engine and the other with a Lycoming. The report of the fuel failures from Sydney does not say whether one make of engine or both are involved.