VERY BUSY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 116, 19 May 1938, Page 10

VERY BUSY

RONGOTAI AERODROME

OVERFLOW FROM HANGAR

FUTURE EXTENSIONS

Rongotai Aerodrome is an extraordinarily busy place—the busiest of the civil aerodromes in New Zealand without taking into account the increasing training flying by members of the Wellington Territorial Squadron of the Air Force. More air passengers pass through Rongotai than through any other New Zealand airport. A few years ago a petrol wagon called 'every so often, once a week, if was needed, but wagons roll up regularly now and the hundreds of gallons they pour into the storage tanks are pumped out promptly into aeroplane tanks.

The more or less permanent planes at Rongctai are the twelve Baffins of. the Wellington 1 Squadron, seven Aero Club machines, two Public Works Department machines, and a light plane belonging to the Air Force. Visitors are extra, as a couple of days ago when two Vickers Vildebeestes arrived from Wigram, and, within a minute or so, the Auckland Club's Beechcraft. ' THe Baffins were the last straw as far as accommodation was concerned and five of them have had to be staked down in the open, the other seven, with wings folded, being packed into the main hangar, leaving just enough room' for a Union Airways Electra. The Aero Club space is not much easier, but the second hangar— originally intended for Public Works use and now to be mainly used by the Wellington Squadron—is practically complete as to framework and is getting its first sheets of iroji. Within a fortnight it will be available for night stowage of the overflow Baffins, though they will have to be turned out,again in the daytime as the work goes on. This will free the main hangar of its present congestion, until the fleets gro.w larger again. When the main hangar was built doubts were expressed whether enough margin was being allowed, and the test will not be long in coming, for during the Exhibition a considerable increase in air traffic is certain, and those who arrive by club Or private plane will stay over a night or so, instead of passing directly through, as so many do now. DAILY BUSINESS. Cook Strait and Union Airways passenger planes make eight landings and departures in the day—more when business is brisk—visiting planes average about five daily in good weather, and club flying, in light machines, either as club flying proper or_ for the training of applicants for the Air Force and the Civil Reserve, has very greatly increased during the past twelve months. The flying of the Baffins has come in on top of that. Petrol runs through the pumps at the rate of up to 400 gallons a day, for airliners, club machines, and visitors. The Baffins are extra again, so that the baby, car owner who buys three gallons a week is not so large a customer after all.

The. increased traffic is ; - having its effects upon the; sown surface of the landing field and 'additional attention has to be paid to keep the surfaces in good order. A big area has been, treated with artificial fertiliser and minor levelling arid rolling is routine .work. An interesting experiment is being carried out by the City Engineer's department on five sections of ground to the east of the new hangar. Each section is being sown with a different grass mixture and under a differing treatment as to preparation, fertiliser, and so on, with the object of ascertaining the most suitable mixture and method for binding the surface to stand up to , increasing traffic and the winds that do undoubtedly blow at Rongotai. AERODROME AND EXHIBITION. The question has again been raised as to the extension of the landing area.. That extensions must be made in the future is beyond any doubt, but the problem is not likely to be solved until after the Exhibition period. It is unfortunate that aerodrome and Exhibition have had mutually adverse repercussions, for the necessities of angle of approach and take-off have made it impossible to' carry the Exhibition buildihgs to the imposing height usually followed in such plans, and the Exhibition has made a westward extension impossible for at least two or three years.

I One thing that might be done —long before the Exhibition opens—is to pull down the blank and properly ugly fence that runs the full length of Kingsford Smith Street. That fence was put there, in tall corrugated iron, because people would stop there, in cars or on foot, to watch the planes; partly the idea was to stop the congregation of cars, and partly it was that they would be so keen on watching planes that they would pay their money at the gate. But of course they don't, though the fence has certainly put an end to car parking; for no driver would think of stopping to look at a fence like that, getting uglier and plainer as the paint dblls with age. It will have to come down before November, 1939; its removal will be one of the permanent benefits conferred on the city by the Exhibition. Rongotai Aerodrome is unique in New Zealand—possibly it is a worldwide uniqueness—in that expense has not been spared in preventing people from being as interested in aerodrome happenings as, obviously, they want to be.