AEROPLANE LANDS ON BEACH

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3935, 27 April 1929, Page 2

AEROPLANE LANDS ON BEACH

UNEXPECTED VISIT OP MOTH. Quite unexpectedly and just on dark on Thursday evening a Moth aeroplane piloted by Captain Mercer, Instructor to the Canterbury ‘lero Club, and carrying as a passenger Mr. Climie, Secretary of the Clulb and the Canterbury Progress League, landed on the local beach, having been caught by darkness while en route from Christchurch to Feilding. The flyers paired their machine on the ocean beach, where they had landed on the waters edge, folded its wing’s back, covered the engine aup cockpits with canvass covers carried for the purpose and made their way into Foxton where they stayed the night at Whyte’s Hotel. Captain Mercer is not a stranger to Foxton, having, some years ago, visited here with an Avro machine for commercial purposes. In conversation with our representative lie stated that they left Christchurch in the D.H. Moth in very bad weather about 1 o’clock on Thursday afternoon. Bad weather, with a strong head wind, dogged the little machine up the coast as far as Blenheim where a halt was made for the purpose of refuelling. On resuming the journey had weather conditions were again encountered over the Straits with bad visibility. Darkness was rapidly coming on and it was found impossible to make Feilding that night. The little machine was given “full bore” up the coast from Kapiti, the speed being in the vicinity of 95 miles per hour. All along the coast the towns were lit up and easily discernible as Captain Mercer carefully scanned the ocean beach at the Heads for a landing ground. Darkness prevented him from landing on the old river bed and he brought the-ma-chine down as near to the waters edge as possible. “I could not tell,” lie said, “whether we were fifty or fifteen feet off the ground it was so dark.” A good landing was effected and no difficulty was experi- ' diced in running the machine up the soft sand out of reach of the water, where, on returning to it in the morning it had the appearance of a huge gull sitting quietly on the sand with wings folded. Shortly after 9 o’clock yesterday morning 'Captain Mercer unfolded the wings of the machine and slotted them into place. Willing hands assisted him! to push the Moth out on to the firm sand, a twist or two of the propellor and he was off, soaring up over the sandhills to land on the old riverbed in order to give the beach children an opportunity of seeing the ''plane. Mr. Climie was soon aboard, however, and the visitors left for Feilding to join other ’planes waiting there and then proceed on to Hastings where an air pageant is to be held next week.

Questioned by our representative as to the suitability of the old river bed as a landing ground for ’planes, Captain Mercer said the ground was ideal and very necessary. He knew he would be able to land on the Foxton Beach on his run up if necessary but the old river bed was not mapped out as a landing ground and as he did not have time to circle over it owing to the darkness' and could not i-isk landing on it in the dark Had he known m.ore about it he would certainly have landed there in preference to the ocean beach, but he was afraid of posts or fences. The old river bed, in his opinion was very suitable for an air port. It was quite as large as might be desired but then a large area of land was not required for runways. The ■ ideal way of laying out a ground for runways was to cut. it up roughly in the .form of a Union Jack. Run ways were levelled from corner to corner, side to side and end to end. The ground between these run ways was not required for any particular purpose and could be left in its natural state. At the beach sandhills were the only obstructions and runways in this mann_er was to enable a pilot to take off in any wind by selecting the correct runway. . The clear area in the middle is eer•tainly very suitable for landing purposes. In 'Captain Mercer’s opinion it would be a good idea for local residents to have a hanger erected at the beach. This could ‘‘be done at very little cost. The shed need only be a skeleton with a sand floor and would not cost more than a ear shed. If this were done and the fact made known it would not be long before the beach would become a recognised air port and ’planes would be calling in.