AUSTRALIAN AIRPORTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23648, 4 November 1938, Page 11

AUSTRALIAN AIRPORTS

ABSENCE OF RADIO GUIDES EVIDENCE AT CRASH INQUIRY (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) MELBOURNE, Nov. S. (Received Nov. 4, at 0.15 a.m.) “ There is a complete absence of radio guides to Australian. airports in bad weather,” Captain G. H. Purves, pilot of the Australian National Airways on the MelbourneSydney route, told the Air Accidents Investigation Committee, which is inquiring into the Kyeema disaster. To his mind, he said, the installation of the Lorenz radio beam would solve all the pilots’ troubles. Weather information, he added, wasreasonably accurate, but not in enough detail. Captain Webb received 10 to 12 words when he should have received a general indication of the conditions round Melbourne. Witness said that the wave lenjgth now used for communication with planes was the worst possible from the viewpoint of static interference and there was grave risk of similar interference if a beacon was installed with the same wave length. W. Launder Cridge, a radio operator at Essendon, said that all aircraft signals were frequently blotted out by a police transmitter operating a few miles from the aerodrome and sometimes by the national radio station 3AR. Squadron-leader C. S. Wiggins, superintendent of the Radio Civil Aviation Board, said that two outstanding aircraft radio difficulties in Australia were the high prevailing noise level, due to atmospheric interference, which was far greater than in the United States and Europe, and the wider distance between aerodromes and radio stations than in Europe and the United States. Witness said that beacon systems could not enable blind landing to.be accepted as a normal procedure. He classified them as low ceiling approach systems. . The inquiry was adjourned till to-morrow.