Changes In Agricultural Flying

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 10

Changes In Agricultural Flying

Agricultural aviation had had its origins in the ! United States back in about 1922, Mr P. Rowley, managing director of Aerial Sowing Ltd., told farmers at a field day at French Farm on Banks Peninsula last week.

About that time, .he said, a I former First World War pilot ’ had persuaded an even braver i friend to sit on the edge of

: the wing of a biplane and I trickle out insecticide on to i a cotton crop that had been giving trouble. “That is how it started” he commented. Mr Rowley said that aerial topdressing had developed in New Zealand from the spreading of 5000 tons of superphosphate in 1950 to just in excess of Im tons in the year ended in March. Just over half of this had been spread in the Auckland province. In New Zealand it had started with the use of a Tiger Moth and an old truck with hand operated winch worth a few hundred pounds and had now got to the stage where a modern aircraft and loader cost more than £17,000. Emphasising the need for airstrips with improved surfaces for use by the more sophisticated aircraft now being employed in agricultural aviation and increased provision of storage for super on airstrips to keep supplies up to the aircraft now carrying bigger loads and spreading more fertiliser in a given time, Mr Rowley said that the number of storage bins in North Canterbury could be counted on one hand—he could think of only five or six in the whole of the district.

Mr Rowley said he wanted to thank farmers, and particularly those on Banks Peninsula, for the better weather reports they were giving to operators. He said

that once upon a time a farmer might be telephoned and asked about the weather. “Well it is not blowing here,” would come the reply. “Of course it was not blowing in the kitchen,” commented Mr Rowley: This sort of thing did not happen much now, he said. When he was flying in the Central Otago area, Mr Rowley said, he had telephoned a farmer who had indicated that the wind could be blowing from the south or north as far as he knew. Mr Rowley suggested that if he went outside and put his face into the wind he would be able to determine the direction from which it was blowing. After a pause the farmer returned to the telephone—“it is blowing right into my face all right,” he said.

Replying to a member of his audience who suggested that there should be some independent person who would decide whether an airstrip was suitable to be flown off, Mr Rowley said that the regional field officer of the Civil Aviation Administration would inspect a strip and discuss its condition with a farmer. To another member of his audience who asked whether a downward sloping strip was preferred to the old traditional flat strip, Mr Rowley said he liked the sloping ones—they gave what he called “gravitational J.A.T.0.”