900 MILES' FLIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 32, 6 August 1936, Page 8

900 MILES' FLIGHT

OVER MOUNTAIN & JUNGLE

TO HELP STRANDED PARTY

From "The Post's" Representative.) .'.-•■■ SYDNEY, July 30.

Travellers who arrived in Sydney from New Guinea this week brought details of a daring flight of 900 miles by .which.Pilot A. A. Koch took supplies over high mountains and jungles, where there was no emergency landing grounds, to avert starvation of members of Dr. Archbold's American Museum of Natural History expedition in the Papuan wilds.

The expedition had been using an amphibian aeroplane to maintain conjtact with the coastal settlements, Whence food supplies and equipment were. regularly taken to them. Its members were left in sore straits when suddenly a tropical storm overturned1 the amphibian while it was at anchor at Port Moresby and it sank. The expedition had been awaiting supplies for five days. Their food had gone, and they were faced with starvation if supplies were not taken to them. The party was in the Blucher , Mountains, on the Strickland River, on which the amphibian landed when it took the expedition's supplies, but there were no facilities near the expedition's camp for an aeroplane to land. No. other seaplane was available.

I The position was becoming serious when Pilot Koch in his three-engined Ford was commissioned to attempt the [flight of 900 miles over high mountains, with nowhere to land. The country traversed contained mountains -from ,8000 to 14,000 feet high, where weather changes were frequent and flying conditions can become difficult and often impossible. - The machine was- fitted with extra tankage to extend its range, and the pilot of,the damaged amphibian was taken as a guide. Koch accomplished his task successfully, doing the 900 miles in 7£ hours. His flight was regarded as one of the most successful made in New Guinea, in which aviation has played- a tremendous role and which is probably, tl.e most airminded country in the world.

With petrol which had been Cropped, the expedition was able to operate its wireless transmitter, and advised that all the supplies dropped had been found. The expedition is returning to Port Moresby, and it will go back, to the United States and return to Papua with a twin-engined Sikorsky flying-boat. Repairs to the amphibian which was immersed tor 48 hours in salt water, would have been too costly.