SOUTHERN CROSS

Hokitika Guardian, 23 May 1929, Page 3

SOUTHERN CROSS

HAD EXCELLENT WIRELESS EQUIPMENT'. DIFFICULTIES ON LONG FLIGHTS. RADIO OPERATOR INTERVIEWED WELLINGTON, May 21. Mr John S. W. SLannuge, who Was wireless operator for Captain Holden on the Canberra, when lie discovered and rescued Kingston! Smith and liis companions on the Southern Cross, i> now wireless operator on the Union Steam Ship Company’s Manuka. Interviewed with reference to tinforced landing of the Southern Cross, and the insuperable difficulties encountered in trying to get into .vireless communication with the outside world once t)ie aeroplane had landed. Mr Stannage said: “The whole thing was a succession of misfortunes. It is very disappointing that the Australian public did not stand by their heroes. Instead of thinking the worst of them, why didn’t they invent excuses for them—-not that excuses were really necessary—Che same as wo would have done in New Zealand? I am sure I do not think for one minute that anybody who 'know anything about aviation, navigation, or wireless, or anybody who knew anything about the nature of the country they Hew over would have entertained any suspicions from the start. ■’

TERRIBLE COUNTRY. ‘‘lt was terrible country we fiew over in the course of the search. We were flying for seven hours some days, and never saw a change in the scenery. There was not a landmark of any sort—just buyren desert. Kingsford Smith was quite right when lie told the Air Enquiry Commission til" other day that an emergency set would have been useless to them. The life of an emergency set is only about four or five hours. It is a battery set and of considerable weight. Yon see, they, had to carry 800 gallons of petrol on the Southern Cross, and they wanted to get out of her every little bit of weight they possibly could. They were so certain, too, of reaching their objective—in fact, they got there and all would have been well but for the .fearful weather they experienced, and their being unable to see where they were. They had an ordinary 600 metre set in the Southern Cross, but they took it out because it meant so much weight and was very seldom used. It was really for communicating with ships, and tho gear they took with them was the best in the whole world. There was not another like it in the Southern Hemisphere.”

TTIE LOST AERIAL. “Would it not be possible to have a hand-operated transmitting set that would not weigh anything like so much as a battery emergency set?” 110 was asked. t , “Yes, it should be possible,” was the reply. “That is what they are going into now in Australia. Kingsford Smith’s experience shows that provision should bo made for transmitting from the ground. With the set the Southern Cross had, people could have followed them right through the trip so long as they were in the air, and they did follow them. They were followed to the very hist inch, except of course when they had to flv around blind, seeking for n landing place. “As to the loss of the receiving aerial, even if they had had that receiving aerial up I don’t think they would have got a message, because in the air it is practically impossible to receive any Rignals owing to the noises caused by tile ignition system. It is impossible to block tho noise out. and the Southern Cross has got 31 plugs firing at a very high speed that makes one continuous roar in the receivers, and unless that is screened out they cannot receive at all in the air They have been investigatin'" that point in the United States, though, and have now developed an instrument that practically cuts out all ..that noise. I cannot understand why Kingsford Smith didn’t say that at the enquiry, because he knows very well that they could not receive in the air. “I had the world’s most womlorf”. receiver with me in the Canberra. Of course Kingsford Smith could not send messages, but in any case it was all I could do, even with that instrument. to receive Svdtiev when we were over Katoomha, which is only about 60 miles away.

Captain Holden, yon will remember, said that, judging from tbo Southern Cross reports of her progress, he was sure they would be found just about where they wore eventually found. Holden had swotted the whole thing up, and had plotted out their course on the map. He is a verv fine pilot and very careful. Tlint was another unfortunate thing—Kingsford Smith took with him maps of parts of their route but did not have sharts of the region where they were forced down, right off their route. “I saw their improvised transmitting apparatus. They had jacked up their machine, and cut down a tree to block it up, and had torn down the generator on the side of the machine and fixed up a friction drive, but that was done some days after they

landed when they had practically given up hope and their remaining strengdi would only allow them to turn it lor 10 to 20 seconds at a time which would not give time for the signals to he picked up—not time enough for other people to tune in to their wavelength. MOIR AND OWEN. '•‘l uni sorry to say that it looks as if those other two aviators, Muir and Owen, have gone. down. They were passing over much the same country as the .Southern Cross flew over. It is terrible country, between Wvndham and Derby, simply a mass of mountains, canyons, steep precipices, and rivers. We found a river there not on the chart, which is bigger than any river in New South Wales. There is no doubt that from the air is the easiest way to chart a country, especially such country as that we flew over. Four Ministers are starting on a trip to Darwin in the Canberra on June 10th. I think they are on a trip to survey for landing places. They want me to go with them, hut I can’t get away to accompany them and am cabling them this morning to say I cannot go.”