Long plane gives crowd long wait

Press, 21 July 1980, Page 1

Long plane gives crowd long wait

More than 15,000 people flocked to Christchurch Airport yesterday to walk through a “stretched” United States Air Force CI4B Starlifter. The queues waiting to get into the United States base at Harewood had grdwn so long by midafternoon that the organisers, the Lions Club of Christchurch, were forced to close the gates. “We did not want to close up but we did not expect such tremendous interest. It was taking two hours to get people

through the aircraft, and we would never have' got them all off the base by nightfall,” said a spokesman for the dub, which ran the open day in conjunction with the U.S.A.F. The spokesman said that between 15,000 and 20,000 people had visited the base, but it was" not yet known how much money had been raised. The admission fees were $1 for adults, 50c for .children, and $2 for family groups. The proceeds will go to local charities. Displays by the U.S.A.F., the Antarctic Division of the Department of Scien-

tific and Industrial Research, and the United States National Science Foundation also created keen interest. But the longest queue was that leading to the big aircraft. A basic CI4I Starlifter has been “stretched” through the insertion of two new sections which lengthen the fuselage by eight metres. The aircraft handles better than- the shorter Cl4l, and, surprisingly, consumes less fuel, according to the U.S.A.F. It arrived at Christchurch on Saturday.