N.Z. AIR FORCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 77, 1 April 1938, Page 8

N.Z. AIR FORCE

NEW OHAKEA STATION TENDERS CALLED FOR HANGARS WELLINGTON, March 31. Included in the list of tenders gazetted as having been passed by tne Public Works Department is one of £105,127 for hangar construction at the new North Island base of the Royal New Zealand Air Force at Ohakea, on tne Sanson-Bulls highway, near the Rangitikel River, and 24 miles from Feilding. The contractors, McMillan Bros., Ltd., have their plant on the ground, and the hangars should be completed in about fifteen months.

The development at Ohakea is part, of the Government's plan for the large-scale expansion of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the twin hangars for which the contract has been let will be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. Each hangar will have a ground area of 220 feet m width and 190 feet in depth, with a door opening 25 feet high, closed by sliding doors, so that together they will be able to accommodate a considerable number of modern bombing machines of wide wing-spread. The roof design is unusual, for in place of one or other of the farms of standard construction adopted in the Royal Air Force stations in Great Britain, the roof span members will be ten great arches of reinforced concrete, the feet of which will sweep down far outside the walls proper. The design has been adopted to meet the difficulty in obtaining heavy structural steel at the present time, for the sections required for so great a span are not rolled in Australia, and England would not have been able to fulfil the order for over a year, and as the contract period is of 15 months from the commencement of work, the simultaneous programme of expansion would have been seriously delayed. Even were the delay acceptable, the cost of such sections would be considerably greater than the reinforced concrete arches decided upon.

Lesser buildings at Ohakea will include modern barracks, residences for officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, a main assembly building with gymnasium, workshops, designing and photographing rooms, petrol stores, garages for land transport machines, etc. Other contracts gazetted in connection with the R.N.Z.A.F. are:—Flying Training School, Wigram, erection of main store, £6190 (J. and W. Jamieson, Ltd,), and erection of guardhouse, £1033 (D. Hall). The progress that is being made in the provision of aeradio services is indicated by the letting of contracts lor the erection of radio-transmitting stations at the Westshore (Napier), Nelson (Tahunanui), and Harewood Aerodromes. Every stopping-place on the commercial route is now equipped with radio, and East Coast Airways are installing radio equipment in their machines which will bring them into line with other commercial services.