BRITISH AVIATION PROGRESS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19804, 21 May 1934, Page 5

BRITISH AVIATION PROGRESS

FLYING SERVICES EXTENDED GOLDFIELD AIR LINES (From Our Ow'" Correspondent.) LONDON, April 10. Air services which transport more inanimate cargo than those of all the rest of the world together operate between the New Guinea goldfields and aerodromes on the coast. In fine weather up to eighty tons of cargo is carried on these services in a single day. From Lae. one of the coastal ports and aerodromes, aeroplanes have carried to the goldfields sections of giant gold dredges, weighing more than 1000 tons each, and a 5000 h.p. hydroelectric plant. In all, nearly thirty aeroplanes are constantly employed. The main goldfields are alluvial, and are situated at and around Wau and Bulolo, though independent prospectors and others acting for the big mining companies are nowadays going farther and farther afield in a northwest direction from Bulolo, in an attempt to find other lucrative regions. The aeroplanes fly to Wau from Lae and Salamaua, which are 55 and 32 miles distant respectively. There is reason enough for the employment of aerial transport. Native boys, carrying each fifty pounds of “payload,” take between six and eight days for the journey from Salamaua to Wau; the flying machine takes thirty minutes. Inevitably, all of the supplies for the mines go by air, including corrugated iron, rice, groveries, cooking stoves, hardware, drinks, machinery and livestock. The flight is a curious one. Lae aerodrome is at sea level and is six hundred yards long, and only a hundred yards wide. The pilot takes off and climbs at once to a height of 7000 feet, which gives a safe margin for passage over the pass (5800 feet Kin the chain of mountains; rising to nearly 10,000 feet that lies between the coast and the goldfields. Almost immediately after reaching that height the pilot has to begin a deep descent to the landing ground at Wau. There the aerodrome is 3200 feet up; it iSjSlightly larger than Lae, but slopes at a gradient of 1 in 12. The technique required in landing is careful judgment of the right moment to turn on to the gradient and apply the brakes, when the machine stops within a few yards. Light ’Plane Efficiency. The majority of the machines employed on the four services to the goldfields are British. Especially noteworthy is the performance of the little “Fox Moth” biplanes, four of which were taken by Major Here ward de Havilland to New Guinea for the goldfields services about fifteen months ago. They fly without trouble day in and day out. On each trip each of them carries 650 pounds of cargo; frequently they shift more than 10,000 pounds of cargo in a day. Recently, in one period of four months, these small British biplanes carried well over half a million pounds weight of cargo. That is performance—and service. Another important order secured in the face of severe competition on the Continent of Europe emphasises the outstanding qualities of British aero engines. This time the Government of Finland, after careful investigation of claims made for leading foreign engines, has placed a substantial contract with the Bristol Company for the supply of “Pegasus” 580/635 h.p. aircooled radial motors, which will be installed in new two-seater military aircraft.

Early last year the Bristol company supplied a number of “Pegasus” engines to Finland; the new order comes, therefore, as evidence of satisfactory service.

The decision to adopt the “Pegasus” engine was reached only after the achievement of extremely severe tests imposed by the Finnish authorities. One “Pegasus” engine, for example, which had already run for 304 hours, was fitted in Finland into a Blackburn “Ripon” biplane and then flown under service conditions for a further hundred hours. When it was dismantled at the end of the test for inspection, the well-nigh perfect condition of the engine astonished the Finnish experts, who declared that it was in better shape than many other engines which had done not more than 100 hours’ running in all. Like all of the engines in the Bristol range, the “Pegasus” is a nine-cylinder unit. The particular type of “Pegasus” engine concerned in the new Finnish order is that styled 11.M.2, which develops maximum power of 635 h.p. at a height of 6500 feet above sea-level, and its normal rate power of 580 h.p. at 5000 feet. Its weight is only 980 pounds, which means that, at maximum output, every horse-power is produced by only 11 pounds of structure. A Great Flight. Flying in a British light aeroplane, two Belgian aviators —Mr and Mrs Guy Hansez —have accomplished a flight from Antwerp to Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, which ranks with the greatest achievements in amateur flying. They carried a load of mails with them; the fact lends additional importance to the journey. The flyers left Antwerp in their “Fox Moth” biplane on March 24; they landed at Leopoldville—7soo miles away—five days later. Mr Hansez, who is noted for his determination and capacity to continue flying in weather bad enough to keep most aviators on the ground, occupied the pilot’s cockpit, which in the “Fox Moth” is located aft of the wings; his wife, who is a competent navigator, took charge in the cabin forward of the mails and luggage. From start to finish the weather was most unfavourable, beginning with low cloud and fog near the Franco-Belgian frontier and continuing similarly till in the Congo Mr Hansez was forced by weather to forego his intended landing at Boma and to drop the mailbag addressed there on the aerodrome. Within a few seconds of beginning the take-off run at Antwerp the little machine was lost to sight in the mist; it flew into Leopoldville in a deluge of rain. Mr Hansez had planned to make the journey in six days. But he reached Niamey, in the Upper Volta region of French Equatorial Africa, on the third day, well beyond Gao, his intended halt, and he maintained the gain, in spite of hours which he had spent battling with sandstorms and high winds over the desert. The “Fox Moth” normally carries the pilot, and three or four passengers in the cabin—impressive load on the power of a single “Gipsy Major” 130 h.p. motor. The cruising speed of Mr Hansez’s machine is 105 miles an hour. It is fitted with extra tanks which bring its maximum still-air range up to 950 miles; in all other respects it is exactly the same as the standard machine. And with this little machine, two amateur flyers have shown how an aii mail service can be run, even in bad weather, between Belgium and her great African colony.