$500,000 Plan For Queenstown Runway

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31520, 7 November 1967, Page 28

$500,000 Plan For Queenstown Runway

“'The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON, November 6. The Queenstown airfield is to have a sealed runway, taxiway and apron at a cost of up to $500,000 so that it wifi be capable of taking the Hawker-Siddeley 748 aircraft. It is hoped the work will be completed by April, 1968, says the Minister of Civil Aviation (Mr Gordon).

Final talks have yet to take place with the local authorities, but it is expected that these will not in any way delay construction. Mount Cook Airlines, which serves the area, has selected the HS74B to replace its DC3 aircraft, and the first will be delivered in October, 1968. It will seat up to 52 passengers, and can operate off some unsealed airports on consolidated gravel regions. Unfortunately, these conditions are not present at the Frankton (Queenstown) field.

This makes a sealed runway imperative.. Mount Cook's route structure involves 936 landings there each year. The Minister said the air fields at Te Anau, Mount Cook and Pukaki were owned by Mount Cook Airlines, which had undertaken to upgrade them at its own expense.

The airfields at Tlmaru, Oamaru and Alexandra, also served by the airline, were of a nature that might require some sealing only to the apron and to the run-up area at each end of the runway. Improvements to these airfields were being studied.