New Zealand's Air Age

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 16

New Zealand's Air Age

IVIL aviation in New Zealand has developed with a speed which had been "an absolute revelation" to him, said Arnold Wall, Talks Officer at 3YA, when he spoke to The Listener about the features on New Zealand’s air age which he has just produced. The first of these, on agricultural aviation-discussed in The Listener three weeks ago-was heard recently. The others will be broadcast between now and Christmas in the Main National programme at 9.30 on Sunday mornings, starting with Thanks to Marconi, on November 25. "The aim of the programmes," said Mr. Wall, "is to show what civil aviation is doing in New Zealand, and how the Civil Aviation Administration has helped it along. I moved about the country for three weeks, and recorded between 70 and 80 separate items-in-terviews and so on." Mr. Wall spent the first week in Wellington, four days in Auckland, two in Queenstown, Dunedin and Invercargill, three between Paraparaumu, Wanganui, New Plymouth, Hamilton, Napier and Hastings, and about four at Harewood. "Most of my

flying was in NAC planes," he said, "but my North Island tour was made in one of the C.A.A.’s two Dakotas, whose main job is checking and calibration of radio and radar aids to navigation, both in New Zealand and in some of the Pacific islands." Mr. Wall said he found aviation in this country "absolutely dynamic, growing tremendously, and everywhere full of optimism." He added: "I think one reason for its rapid growth is the low average age in the executive grademyst of the men are in their 30s or 40s, ard all have great go and push. And a very enlightened C.A.A. has kept ‘development free from unnecessary restrictions." Mr. Wall. said Thanks to Marconi will deal with meteorological and signals services, navigational aids and air traffic control of both internal and overseas flights-"without which, it’s fair to say, civil aviation as we know it today would be quite unable to operate." One item in this programme will be a radio-tele-(continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) phone conversation with the Met. station on Campbell Island. Travel by Air, the next to be heard, will cover not only TEAL and NACseveral NAC executives will talk about the introduction of Viscounts-but interviews with some of the people operating feeder services. The development of air freight ser-vices-NAC, TEAL and, again, the small operators-greatly impressed Mr. Wall, and one of the first things he told us when discussing his third programme, Freighting Fast and Far, was that people from all parts of the world are interested in the system being used on the Cook Strait freight service. "One of its features is the Cargon system of transferring freight from truck to aircraft and vice versa, which is likely to be taken up also for purely surface use," he said. "At Paraparaumu I saw a freighter land from Blenheim and taxi off again in nine minutes after a complete houseload of furniture had been taken out and a mixed cargo of freight put in." The flow of internal freight tended to be food from the south and manufactured goods from the north, and, as an example, refrigerators might be tested at Petone at 9.0 a.m. and in use in Christchurch homes at 9.0 p.m. the same day. On Aviation’s Sidelines, the fourth programme, will bring together a group of fascinating miscellaneous aspects of flying in New Zealand. "Take the Wanganui Aero Club," said Mr, Wall. "More or less by accident it started training commercial topdressing pilots, so that the old idea of a club as a social and sporting organisation has changed." Mercy flights, scenic trips, air-dropping of supplies to deer-cullers, the use of an outsize geiger counter for uranium prospecting, forest fire patrols. (there are even experiments in fire-fight-ing from the air), aerial mapping an surveying, gliding and sky advertisingthese are some of the other activities the programme will illuminate The last feature will cover the activities of the CAA-its calibration flights, airfields and communication services, accident investigation (here there’ll be a timely warning), and the work of the Search and Rescue Organisation-in-cluding a note on the plans of an Auckland club to provide a team of parachutists for first aid work in mountainous country.