RIVER BOARD AND AVIATION

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 45, 22 February 1930, Page 8

RIVER BOARD AND AVIATION

* (To the Editor.) Sir,—lt was a very great surprise to see iv your paper of yesterday's date the decision by majority o£ the Hutt River Board to refuse the tender o£ the Wellington Aero Club of £312 per annum, and to accept that o£ a private individual for £300 per year, when it ia taken into consideration that the Wellington Aero Club was prepared to, and indeed had to expend a considerable sum of money, amounting to, I understand, some £1500 on draining, levelling, and passing the surface of the 43 acres in question. The members of the Hutt River Board, must surely be aware that Lower Hutt residents have displayed more tangible ititercst iv aviation per capita than any other centre iv New Zealand, this being shown by the fact that there, are 'no less than four light aeroplanes owned by residents of the Valley. Their excuse that the pastime of flying would be too noisy is indeed childish, for an aeroplane does not make as much noise as a motor-cycle, and beyond this sole reason there seems no justification for their crushing blow to the development of civil and private aviation in the Hutt Valley. It will be recollected that _ the early advocates of motoring received the strongest opposition from borough councillors in the early days, who permitted no motor-cars to proceed along any road at a speed greater than four miles per hour, and in addition a man bearing a red flag must invariably walk before. Youug members of the community who display enough initiative to take up this latest form of transportation must now proceed 15 miles to Rongotai and 15 miles back every time they want 15 minutes' lesson, and when they get _ there must take infinitely more risk owing to the tricky nature of the winds and. close proximity of, transmission wires.—l am, PROGRESS. Lower Hutt.