Signing Of Boeing Contract Soon

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31407, 28 June 1967, Page 1

Signing Of Boeing Contract Soon

The National Airways Corporation expected that financial arrangements for the purchase of its three Boeing 737 s would be completed in the next fortnight, said Mr D. A. Patterson, the general manager of N.A.C. in Christchurch yesterday.

Once the Government had completed arrangements, the contracts could be signed. Mr Patterson said that the pilots who would go to Seattle for Boeing conversion training had virtually been selected from among senior Viscount captains. But there was no hurry about selection, as the pilots would not go to the United States until next year.

It is understood that, to get a flight simulator to New Zealand in time for pilots to begin training in it, a contract will have to be signed within two weeks. Mr Patterson said the contract had not yet been signed because the purchase of a simulator, estimated to cost £350,000, was subject to conditions laid down by the Government which had not yet been met by the British manufacturer. The simulator would be housed at Christchurch Air-

port, he said. Earlier the N.A.C. had considered installing it at Mangere, but Christchurch was the more economic proposition.

Mr Patterson said it was planned to fly the last DC3 on December 18, 1968. This would depend on the 737 s coming into service by then, and he saw no reason why they should not.

Mr Patterson and the chairman of the N.A.C.’s board of directors (Sir Andrew McKee) yesterday visited the corporation’s new offices in the Bank of New Zealand. From Monday business will be conducted from the bank premises.