Last Electra Flight To Melbourne

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32336, 30 June 1970, Page 24

Last Electra Flight To Melbourne

Fruit cake is something not normally eaten for breakfast, although this morning 46 passengers on board an Air New Zealand Electra crossing the Tasman to Melbourne can be expected to break a dietary habit.

The 351 b iced cake was specially baked for the occasion —the end of Electra flights from Christchurch to Melbourne. In addition souvenir hunters will be able to take away the menu, which has been overprinted to mark the occasion. The Electra, which will be saluted away at 8.15 a.m. from Christchurch Airport, will make a low-level circuit over the city and suburbs before setting course for Melbourne. Subject to weather and air traffic control clearance the pilot (Captain G. R. B. Highet) expects to fly the Electra at about 1000 ft over Wigram, Cashmere, the city centre and along the course of the Avon to the coast, before returning over Cathedral Square to set course for Melbourne. Among the passengers on the flight will be the Secretary for Transport (Mr R. J. Polaschek), who will be attending the opening of Melbourne’s ss9m Tullamarine Airport tomorrow. When the Electra leaves Essendon Airport later today for New Zealand it will be the last international carrier to take off from there. Qantas 707 s and Air New Zealand’s DCBs will replace

the Electra and will reduce the flight time to 3 hours 35 minutes—more than an hour less than the Electra’s flight time. Tomorrow afternoon a Qantas 707 will become the first pure jet from Christchurch to land at Tullamarine Airport.