AERIAL SURVEY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22349, 21 February 1936, Page 20

AERIAL SURVEY

; L(OG FLIGHT ENDS REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENTS GIFTS' FROM HEAD-HUNTERS [from- our own correspondent] MELBOURNE. Feb. .12 A remarkable 10,000 miles flight, which occupied six and a-half months, ended this week with the return to Melbourne of a 10-year-dd Southampton Supermarine flying-boat, a unit of the Koyal Australian Air Force. Six members of the Air Force participated in tba flight, which was mado for sur-> vev purposes in. connection with the establishment of seaplane bases, and included' visits to New Guinea and to nil principal centres in the Commonwealth.

The flight, which is claimed to bo one of 'the most notable in aviation history, embraced the following incidents: Overhauling one of the engines on a tropical mud flat two feet deep in black ooze; discovering lost aviators on the uncharted upper reaches of tho Fly River, New Guinea; keeping on friendly terms with primitive Papuan headhunters who had never met white men before; nursing a desperately sick member of the crew on tinned milk and wildduck soup 2000 miles from civilisation in a temporarily disabled machine;' living on native food and such "oddments" as 'fell to their rifle when the flight took them away for weeks on end from all contact with other persons; and, most important of all, keeping the boat in flying trim under great difficulties' in the tropics.

On one occasion Papuan head-hunters, as a great honour to the white men who had arrived in the "big feller pigeon," invited the aviators to a communal' > clubhouse, where the natives proudly displayed about ,10.00 hu.man skulls,'' trophies won in savage raids on neighbouring tribes. On leaving the visitors ttfere presented with a number of skulls, which they dared not refuse for fear of offending their primitive hosts. But the grim relics were too much for 'their peace of mind and they were thrown into the sea once the boat was in the air. Mosquitoes and flies, together with the unceasing attacks of rust on the metal portions of the machine,_ were the greatest trials experienced in the humid tropical climate.. When the men could not go ashore because of crocodiles in the large river estuaries or because of wide mud flats they slept in the cramped hull of the flying-boat, rigging nets over the cockpits to keep out the' mosquitoes. 'The chief anxieties of the flight arose from the possibility of a breakdown in an inaccessible place. The leader of the flight, SquadronLeader A. E. Hem pel, paid a high tribute to all the radio station operators along the Australian and New Guinea coasts. But for their help, he said, the flight would not have been completed. He added that the expedition was a success because .of the team-spirit of the crew and the resourse and ingenuity of the'three craftsmen carried.