MIXED CARGOES

Taranaki Daily News, 26 September 1933, Page 9

MIXED CARGOES

NEW GUINEA PLANES

SERVICES TO GOLDFIELDS.

DIRECTOR IN WELLINGTON.

A visitor to Wellington during the last few days has been Captain E. A. Mustar, a quiet man who does extraordinarily difficult jobs in out-of-the-way places—though he will probably deny the difficulty. He is managing director of New Guinea Airways, Ltd., a company of which New Zealand has heard a good deal from time to time, for its work is certainly spectacular, but this is the first time that its head has visited New Zealand.

New Guinea Airways transported over high mountain ranges sections for the building of gold dredges, gold batteries, and sluicing plant from the sea coast to the interior. To-day the machines are still carrying in more plant for various mining companies, and provide the whole of the regular passenger, goods and gold transport between fields and coast.

“We started the service in January, 1927,” Captain Mustar told a “Post” reporter, “and we made the first actual flight on April 18 in quite an historic machine, too, a D.H. 37, GA—AAA, historic because it was the first machine of the Australian Civil Aviation Department. Since then we. have grown quite a piece, and to-day there are four single-engined Junkers in commission—two were lost—three Moths, and a big Junker, a three-engined job, weighing 19,0001 b. all up, and with a useful load of just on 10,0001 b. That is a fairly substantial machine, but then it has substantial work to do.”

EVERYTHING BY AIR. “You have heard about the transport of dredges in sections,” said Captain Mustar, “so we won’t say much about that. The heaviest single piece was a tumbler shaft, 69001 b., but that was just heavy. We have taken more interesting cargo than that; tons of steel plate, four units for a hydro-electric undertaking for one field, a steam plant boiler, in sections, of course, reef-mining battery plant fe miles of pipe and fixings for the sluicing areas, plates for the cyanide process, and just about everything you will find in your own wharf sheds—and some others besides. Pianos are easy, a baby car which sat firmly on a ton of rice was another item, with a steel safe to make weight, and on one trip in the big machine bloodstock cattle, a heifer and a young bull. They went in easily and just went for a ride. Probably we got a bigger thrill out of it than they did.”

The dredges at Bulolo are similar to those used on the west coast of the South Island. One has now been running for twenty months, and another for almost a year. A third is to start this month, and then sections for . a fourth are to be carried in. In addition to the heavy transport, the machines carry as routine work the whole of the supplies necessary to keep the growing inland settlements going. FIVE DAYS OR HALF AN HOUR. Actually the distance flown is small, but so difficult is the country that on foot each trip is a five days’ struggle, and to transport heavy machinery, even for all the gold in New Guinea, would be almost an impossibility except by air. Though the normal flying time is about 25 minutes—say an hour return—the company makes sure by carrying fuel and oil sufficient for two hours and a-half, for frequently heavy clouds cover the mountain ranges and make the usual route, through a pass about 6000 ft. high, not feasible. All over New Guinea there are indications of gold, and that is why prospectors go away back and take a chance.