SEAPLANES & PAEROA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5484, 7 October 1929, Page 2

SEAPLANES & PAEROA.

WAIHOU QUITE SUITABLE. LANDING FEASIBLE. With reference to seaplanes landing on the river at Paeroa, Major G. A. Cowper, instructor of the Auckland Aero Club, in answer to queries made by a representative of this paper, said the question as put at the conference on aviation held at Paeroa was misunderstood. The question as put then was thought to refer to landing on the river alongside the landing ground on the Old Te Aroha Road selected from the air.

Major Cowper intimated that the river below the Puke bridge was quite suitable for water aircraft. Like land ’planes, they had to land from different directions according to the wind. The Waihou, then, below the bridge would make a splendid reach for seaplanes, as with its circuitous course a 'plane could always pick out a stretch to land on against the wind from whichever point of the compass it was coming. From wherever it landed it would merely be a matter of taxi-ing to the Ngahina wharf. Major Cowper agreed that from the commercial flying point of view in New Zealand seaplanes would be most used, as in the majority of cases the direct line from big centre to big centre lay over water. In inter-island air trade it would be almost imperative to use amphebians.