Adaption Of Aeroplanes For Top-Dressing Work

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 94, 11 September 1950, Page 7

Adaption Of Aeroplanes For Top-Dressing Work

The Government is now considering whether some of the aircraft to be bought for the re-equipment of the Royal New Zealand Air Force can be adapted for experiments in aerial top-dressing.

Two types of transport aircraft—the Bristol Freighter and the Handley Page Hastings—have been ordered from British manufacturers but the order is subject to final confirmation by the Air Ministry. If Bristol Freighters can be obtained it is proposed that one or more should be adapted for aerial. topdressing. The Bristol Aeroplane Company, which manufactures the Bristol Freighter, has been interested in the experimental work done by the Royal New Zealand Air Force. In September, 1949, a director of the company visited New Zealand with proposals for the application of the freighter to aerial top-dressing in this country. Since then the company has made successful tests with an aircraft in which a one-ton fertiliser hopper was installed. This hopper can be removed from the fuselage through the nose -doors, leaving the freighter in its normal role as a transport aircraft. The company has now developed a hopper with a capacity of six tons for top-dressing large acreages. It claims that one freighter, so equipped, could treat 180,000 acres a year. The Department of Agriculture is being kept fully informed of the experiments made by the company in Britain. It will be associated with the Royal New Zealand Air Force in any plans for large-scale aerial top-dressing as part of the flying training of air crews.