NEW USE FOR AEROPLANE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17844, 27 July 1921, Page 8

NEW USE FOR AEROPLANE.

o . RELIEF IN FLOOD TIMES. [>nOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] SYDNEY, July 19. A new use has developed for the aeroplane, which is certainly going to establish it firmly as a means of communication in this country of wide distances. Australia,, periodically, has its droughts and its floods—and one of the floods is now visiting Western New South Wales. Hundreds of square miles are under water, the great rivers of the west are spreading (far beyond their banks, and many towns, townships, and homestead* are isolated. In former years, in such circumstances, a sort of communication was kept up painfully by boats, but where people were cut off by perhaps 20 to 30 miles of flood water, that waa not possible). To-day, regular communication is being maintained with all the isolated towns and homesteads by aeroplanes. A number of Avros have gone out from Sydney, and they are easily making the short flights necessary to carry mails and messages between the various places. The whole country is flat and open and the 'planes can land almost anywhero. When the floods isolated one homestead, the son of the house,- with two schoolboy friends, was at home. School j was to recommence almost at once, important examinations were to be worked for, and the floods threatened to last for weeks. The telephono was in order, so an aeroplane was sent for. The boys entered the 'plane at Orton Park at 11.15 a.m., and were at their school in Inverell, 75 miles away, at half past 12. They flew over flood waters nearly all the way. And. of coarse, the three youths are leported to be the heroes of the school.