FLYING IN NEW GUINEA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20724, 18 November 1930, Page 11

FLYING IN NEW GUINEA.

COAST TO GOLDFIELDS.

NEW MACHINES SECURED. TRANSPORT OF MACHINERY. [BY TFTF.GR A PH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT. ] WELLINGTON, Monday. With the developmont, f| f g r, ld mining in New fitiinoa new and heavier service aeroplanes are required for Guinea Airways, Limited, the firm which was established in order to up better communication between the gold areas and the coast. Captain A. S. Cross, managing director of the company, arrived in Well ington by the Maunganui to-day from San Francisco on his way back to Australia and New Guinea. He has been on a. business trip to England and the Con tinent, and bought at Dessau, Germany, three new Junker G3l machines, which have boon built, to his requirements for use by Guinea Airways. The machines are of the three-engined typo, each engine developing 525 horse power, and they will be capable of carrying the heaviest onepiece load that has ever ben carried by an aeroplane.

Guinea Airways had been running for four years, said Captain Cross. During that, time it, had been carrying passengers and all supplies from tho coast to the goldfields, which are situated about 40 miles inland. Tho country is a difficult one for communication and tho onlymeans of reaching tho goldfields, apart from aircraft, is by walking. The walk, however, from coast to goldfields takes eight days owing to the nature of the land that has to be traversed. By aeroplane the trip is made in 40 minutes. Up to the present most of tho work that had been done on the fields was prospecting and testing tho ground. Very promising results had been obtained and about a year ago those on tho goldfields decided that operations would proceed on a bigger scale. This was tho real reason of his trip, said Captain Cross. Larger aircraft were required to handle tho mining plant. With tho new Junker machines, which were being sent to New Guiijea, via tho Suez Canal, it would be possible for single castings weighing three and a-half tons to bo transported from tho coast to the goldfields. At present the company employed seven pilots. It would be necessary to increase tho staff as soon as the new aeroplanes arrived. The country over which the company ran its services was hillv and heavily timbered. There were 14 regular aerodromes in uso, of which the four main ones were largo and well equipped. On the goldfields about 300 Europeans were working.

Captain Cross himself is a pilot with war experience in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force. After the war he spent two years in the Australian Air Force.