Jungle to Coast

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 September 1928, Page 9

Jungle to Coast

Air Services in Belgian Congo

Remarkable Development

THERE was a iime when we Belgians talked a. lot To-day we act.”

The progress made during Ihe last four years by air services in Belgian Congo, in linking up the remotest, and most inaccessible jungle towns with Atlantic coast ports, bears out this cryptic assertion.

If there is one direction in which ihe Belgian Congo is years ahead of the Union of South Africa it is in the development of aerial navigation and ■ the promotion of civilian air trans-! port, says the Cape “Times.” There are no fewer than four air lines in active operation to-day link,ng up all the main centres of civilised ' settlement where no other forms of ! transport exist, supplementing the I railways, and connecting the most remote towns with the coast. Outward and inward High Is are rim. in connection with the fortnightly ! mail steamship service between Ant- . verp and Matadi and Boma, Hie ports I at the mouth of the great Congo River on the Atlantic coast. The two Congo ports named are six ! degrees south of the equator. The | other terminus of the main air line is; Elisabethville, the capital of the Ka-1 tanga Province, which is about 12; degrees south, parallel with Lobito! Bay, and 255 kilometres from the ! Rhodesian fronier. The distance be- ' ween the two terminal air points is :,275 kilometres.

Great Advantages

Normally, the journey from Jdisa bethville by train, road and river to catch the mail boat for Antwerp took 1 from three weeks to a month, accord ing to he state of the weather, and most people travel via Capetown. The new railway line just opened between liukama and Port Francqui, at the head of the navigable portion of the! Kasai River, a tributary of the Congo,! will shorten this by a week, and ulti- > mately by ten days. But by the air, line the whole distance can be done I in two and a-half days at most, and has so bee>n done regularly every ’

fortnight since 1927 with the punc- ' tuality of the Union Limited. Not a single airplane, passenger or parcel has been lost, damaged or delayed in that period. Indeed, the first, and, so far, the i only forced landing, occurred recently ; when the mail plane with a full comI plement of passengers was on its way i to the coast from Elisabet hville. The ■ propeller suddenly began to wobble |in mid-air, and the great plane, a ; Handley-Page, with Siddley-Puma enjgine, fluttered for a few seconds like a bird whose wing had been broken in flight by a stray shot. The pilot immediately made for one of the near est emergency landing places with which the route is doited, and succeeded in bringing his machine to the ground with no more damage than a broken plane, and damaged undercarriage. So efficient is Hie organisation, however, that, in a few hours, a relief plane arrived from the next airdrome, the goods and passengers were ' transferred and the trip continued. Despite the accident and the delay of 12 hours (lie trip was completed to Matadi in time to catch i he steamer. The (jause of the mishap was the snapping of the main shaft of the engine just in front of the first cylinder, a most extraordinary and unique occurrence.

“Our object is not to leave, be', to arrive in good condition, and t~ time,” declared M. Verstruis, the representative of Sabcna airdrome, in describing the incident.

“We do not look upon our flying services as sport, but a business under the same obligation to keep to its schedule as any other form of transport.”