AIRWAY DILEMMA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4047, 13 May 1938, Page 6

AIRWAY DILEMMA

MOORING BUOYS CHEWED. CROCODILES’ TASTES. Because crocodiles do not know the difference between red rubber and raw liver, Imperial Airways research department has been obliged to invent a new type of buoy for mooring its flying-boats at Malakai, Kampala, Kisumu, Raj Samand, and other places in Africa and India. The old mooring device was a huge ball of red rubber, anchored by means of hooks at the end of a steel chain. Rubber was used because it was soft and did not damage the hulls of the flying-boats. The buoys wei*e painted red so that they would be visible at a distance. Several were in use along the Empire routes and they were regarded as eminently satisfactory. But suddenly they started disappearing. Pilots knowing exactly where they were to moor their machines would alight on the water and have nothing to mooi to. Investigations revealed that the buoys, which were hollow, were at the bottom of the lake. Crocodiles, mistaking them, it is believed, for raw liver, had been chewing holes in them, causing them to sink. During the day the reptiles had been seen climbing on to the buoys and sunning themselves comfortably on top. Meanwhile the sunken buoys have been replaced by temporary floats which will shortly be succeeded by the new steel buoys, designed and manufactured by Imperial Airways for their own use. One of the last buoys to disappear was that at Kampala and it was sunk, not by crocodiles, bu£ by natives. When it was fished up from the bottom of Lake Victoria half a dozen native spears were sticking in it. Crocodiles in Lake Victoria are regarded by some of the natives as sacred, and one theory is that the buoy had been sunk for the protection of the reptiles. Another explanation is that the buoy was thought to exert an evil influence on the spiritual web fare of the tribe. Patient explanations by the airway staff, however, mollified the natives and the new buoy so far has not been molested.