NEW GUINEA

Hokitika Guardian, 20 November 1930, Page 8

NEW GUINEA

MINING DEVELOPMENT. AIRCRAFT AS TRANSPORT. WELLINGTON, November 17. With the development of gold mining in New Guinea, new . gutl,.heavier service aeroplanes are required lor Guinea Airways, Ltd., tfie firm which was established in order to set up better communication between the gold areas and tfie coast. Captain A. »• Cross, managing director of the company, arrived in AVejlington by the Maunganui to-day from San brancisco 011 his way back to Australia and thence to New Guinea. He has been on a business trip to England and the Continent and bought in Germany three new Junker G3l machines, which have been built to his requirements for use by Guinea, Airways. The machines are of the three-engined type, each engine developing 525 horse-power, and they will be capable of carrying the heaviest one piece load that lias ever been carried, by an aeroplane, before.

Guinea Airways had been running for four years said Captain Cross to day. During that time it had been carrying passengers and all ■ supplies from the coast to the goldfields, which are situated about 40 mi Ids inland The country is a difficult one for coin munication and the only means of reaching the goldfields, apart from aircraft, is by walking. The walk, however, from coast to goldfields takes eight days owing to the nature of the land that has to lie traversed. By aeroplane the trip is made in 40 minutes. Up to the present, said Captain Cross, most of the work that had been done 011 the fields was prospecting and testing the ground. A T ery promising results bad been obtained, and about a year ago those on the goldfields decided that operations should proceed on a bigger scale. This was the real reason of his trip home. Larger aircraft were required to handle the mining plant. With the new Junker machines which were being sent to Now Guinea via the Suez Canal it would be possible for single castings, weighing three and a half tons, to he transported from the coast to the goldfields.

At present the company employed seven pilots, although it would be necessary to increase the staff as soon ns the new aeroplanes arrived. The country over which the company ran its services was hilly and heavily timbered. There were 14 regular aerodromes in use, of which the four main ones were large and well-equipped. On the goldfields about 300 Europeans were working. Captain Cross himself is a pilot with war experience in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force. After the war he snout two years in the Australian Air Force.