Offering Hovercraft As Crash Tender

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30981, 10 February 1966, Page 1

Offering Hovercraft As Crash Tender

(from Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, February 9. The Westland Company is trying to sell its hovercraft to New Zealand as a crash tender for Mangere Airport.

Local representatives of the British firm have discussed this with the Department of Civil Aviation. They are also believed to have hopes of j selling the hovercraft as ferries between Auckland and Waiheke Island, and Wellington and Eastbourne. A near-tragedy ironically

gave the hovercraft a chance to show its paces at Mangere during the air pageant, when a parachutist fell into the harbour. The hovercraft skimmed across solid ground, mud-flat and water to pick him up in three minute;. Highly Impressed i Informed sources say experts of the Civil Aviation are highly im(pressed with the hovercraft. One would cost about £lOO,OOO, the same price as !the total cost of crash tenders on station at the new airport at present. The hovercraft's equip;ment includes fire-fighting foam and water jets, metalcutting tools to open aircraft fuselages, inflatable rafts.- and polythene mat for people to crawl across and escape from mud flats. The passenger roles of the hovercraft particularly as they apply to Wellington, rely on increases in population to make them economical.

Astronomy Meeting. The Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand will hold its annual meeting in Christchurch at the end of the year. The Canterbury Astronomical Society, which will be host to the visitors, intends to arrange displays to illustrate various aspects of astronomy. r