Children Guests Of Hicat

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31108, 11 July 1966, Page 1

Children Guests Of Hicat

Five children from the isolated Glen Hope School in the Lewis Pass area will be the special guests on Wednesday of the Project Hicat team which has been operating for the last month from Christchurch with the high-altitude U2 aircraft. The children will travel to Christchurch, and ispend most of the afternoon inspecting the project equipment at the airport. They received a special invitation from the commander of the project (Major J. J. King) last week. The visit will be the highlight of weeks of interest the

children have shown in the project since the team arrived in Christchurch. The school is held in the homestead of Glen Hope station. Some of the children travel to school each day by horse having to cross the river to get there. When the U2 first arrived in Christchurch, the children wrote to Major King describing their school and asking him if he would fly low over the station when he passed on one of his missions. When he obliged the children were delighted. “1 wrote back to them.” Major King said yesterday. “I sent a picture of the U2 and invited them to come to, Christchurch to see it. Last| week I received another let-1 ter asking if I was serious, about the invitation. 1 tele-;

phoned on Friday night, although I knew only the Christian names of the children. With the help of the telephone operator, 1 found one of the parents and renewed my invitation.

Major King said he expected the children to arrive at the airport about noon on Wednesday. He planned to show them over the aircraft and if time permitted to treat them to dinner afterwards. The Hicat project will end on Thursday, when the team will leave Christchurch for Laverton field, Melbourne, about 10 a.m. Two more flights are scheduled for the present series, one today and one on {Tuesday. Both the U2 reconinaissance aircraft and the {Boeing military transport will 'go to Melbourne but the 847

Stratojet, which was part of the team in New Zealand, will return to California. Major King said he was well satisfied with what had been achieved. More high-altitude turbulance had been encountered than in other areas where he had worked with the project He had been speaking to representatives of the Lockheed company recently and they were more than satisfied with the data collected in New Zealand.

Major King will leave the Hicat team in Melbourne on Friday and return briefly to Christchurch to collect some of the equipment which will not be used in Australia. He will return to the United States for a short time before joining another project team in another part of the world.