FLIGHTS RESUMED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26769, 12 May 1948, Page 9

FLIGHTS RESUMED

INTERNAL AIRWAYS PILOTS’ ATTITUDE DEFINED p.A AUCKLAND, May 11. Normal flying was resumed by aircraft of the National Airways Corporation this fhorning following an improvement in the weather inmost parts of- the North Island. Passengers whose flights had been postponed on Monday, when eight of the corporation’s air liners were held at Whenuapai were, for the most part, carried tC>r ni(f attitude of the New Zealand air Line Pilots’ Association was explained by a member of the tain C. J. Le Couteur,«of Auckland. He said the civil aviation branch of the Air Department had issued air navigation directions to be effective from January 1 this year. These required pilots to use instruments andradioaids when visibility was below 60 per cent. Very few of the radio aids were yet operating however, and since under the new were-EeTObtJfa. to fly with'oufethese aids only in good visibility," they had no choice but to ground their aircraft when visibility 'deteriorated below minimum standard. “In the past, on internal air lines, rather more was. left to The judgment of individual pilots, but the civil aviation branch naturally wishes to standardise the procedure, Captain Couteur added. “ Equipment is not yet ready however, to enable these regu lations to be fully implemented and the Pilots’ Association has sent ac °™' mittee of three experienced members to Wellington to see the controller of civil aviation, Mr E. A. Gibson, with a draft of some provisional flying rules which we believe will work satisfactorily until the civil aviation branch s can only apply. Meanwhile tcTobey the existing regulations, pilots can only keep their planes on the ground when visibility is below standards set arid until radio aids are operating.”