WIDENING USES OF AIRCRAFT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20612, 29 December 1936, Page 9

WIDENING USES OF AIRCRAFT

NEW RECORDS FOR CARGO ’PLANES AVIATION ASSISTS THE FARMER (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON. November 3. Notable statistics, illustrating the portentous growth in recent months of air freighting traffic, have reached me from Canadian Airways. During September, the company transported more than one million pounds of freight In the mid-west mining area alone, an unprecedented achievement and a total for one month which is higher by nearly 25 per cent than the company’s aggregate load for the whole of 1931. In the spring of this year a contract was placed by the Argosy gold mines concern for tire transportation by air of 500 tons of cargo from Gold Pines, at the head of water navigation on Lake Seul, to Casummit Lake. One 1 stipulation was that the freight must all be delivered before “freeze-up”. The cargo consisted largely in fuel, oil, dynamite, lumber and general supplies. Actual delivery at the mine began in June and by the end of September the estimated tonnage had been successfully delivered, with a margin of more than 100 tons to spare. This great total of airborne freight was still further augmented before freeze-up, each day of open water and suitable flying conditions adding approximately twenty tons. Estimates show that during the freighting Operations the transport aircraft consumed ten railcar loads of fuel and lubricating oil. Six or seven machines have been constantly engaged. Transport of twenty tons has been an average day’s performance but sometimes, when flying conditions were unusually good, as much as 24 tons has been transported in a day, while the week September 15 to 21 saw the move of no less than 129 tons. Each delivery involved a return flight of 140 miles. Radio played an important part in this achievement. Operators kept in touch by radio with headquarters, thereby facilitating movements of aircraft and cargo. Information about weather conditions, supplied by the radio stations, helped materially. Radio maintained contact between mine and city. Destroying Plant Pests A useful experiment made by Canadian Airways during the summer which may lead to big developments next year was the dusting of pea fields containing plants that had been attacked severely by a species of aphis. A mall biplane of the company’s fleet was fitted with special hoppers and “venturi” discharge, and Pilot M. McGregor was detailed for the work. First tests were made on July 25, using nicotine dusts. With the aeroplane flying at a height of ten feet the dust made a swath thirty feet wide on the ground. The hoppers worked satisfactorily, but the hopper exhaust, located in front of the pilot’s cickpit, allowed the dust to enter the cockpit through the floor boards and the pilot was choked and blinded. After the first flight, the exhaust from the hopper was extended to the rear of the cockpit and a five-ply “diversion” screen was fitted near the exhaust, considerably Improving matters. On July 27 Mr McGregor wore special goggles and a nose and mouth respirator for the discharge of 6501 b. of dusting powder over a twenty-acre field. Subsequently, more detail alterations were made in the cockpit, the chief being the sealing of holes with fabric. Experience showed that the best speed at which to fly for dusting from a height of abut ten feet was 85 to 90 miles an hour. On July 28, 6501 b. of dust were spread on a twenty-acre field in 30 minutes and on a second trip another field of equal size was treated as quickly, By this time the total area dusted from the air was 60 acres, and the manager of the canning company that owns the pea fields declared himself satisfied with the results. Before the end of the month another 15 acres were dusted, and the pilot had discovered the most suitable combination of goggles and gas mask to protect him from the dust. The two hoppers ire fitted into the forward mail compartment of the aeroplane, and hold between them 6501 b. of nicotine sulphate, which is fatal to the aphis. Each hopper has a separate vent pipe connecting with the main venturi. Each vent is controlled from the pilot’s cockpit.