Transport Service

World’s Greatest Aerial Transport Service

A SERIES of very fine photographs by Mr. H. L. Downing, published in The Sydney Mail of February 3, gave timely publicity to the rapidly growing goldmining industry on the Morobe goldfield of New Guinea.

The imminent opening of the first big dredge on this well-nigh inacces sible plateau, has directed much public attention to Morobe developments, and the arrival of the popular Assistant District Officer in Australia, on fur lough, with his extraordinarily wide range of first-class photographs, was welcomed by many of the newspaners.

The pictures necessarily showed a good deal of the aerial transport sys tem, which has made the development of this awkwardly placed goldfield pos sible. Every bit of two great steel dredges has been carried in by aero planes.

Here is an extract from The Sydney Mail article: A stirring story is attached to the pictures on these pages. Great freight-carrying aero planes are transporting heavy mining mach inery over mountains on a scale that is at tracting the attention of mining engineers

all over the world. The investing public has followed with interest the operations of the Bulolo Gold Dredging Co. and is aware that powerful financial interests are associated with Placer Development. What has been accomplished by airmen in that work is an epic of pioneering. A recent letter to Mr, Fred Burley, of Sydney, from a “flying friend” gives details which are thrilling: “I have no hesitation in saying that this is the largest undertaking ever attempted in the aviation world. I refer to Bulolo Gold Dredging and Guinea Airways. Between the coast and Bulolo River is a mountain range 8.000 feet to 10,000 feet high.

“A highway is out of the question, owing to landslides, initial cost, and the upkeep. So the aeroplane was brought into operation.

Up to date we have carried 1,700 tons of material into Bulolo. In one month, with two machines, we carried 261 tons. Our three engine Junkers carry up to 3½ tons and our average loading is 5,600 lbs. On one occasion with three machines, 51 tons were taken into Bulolo in two days. The route we follow takes from 35 to 40 minutes flying time, at a speed of about 90 m.p.h. To avoid an altitude of 9,000 feet we go a long way round, and the highest point we have to get over is 4,000 feet. Bulolo itself is 3,000 feet above sea-level. We play safe the whole time, and cloud-flying is out of the question owing to the nature of the country. We have to be very careful we are not caught, as the clouds close in very quickly.”