To Be Flown to New Guinea

Guinea Airways’ Fast New ’Plane Arrives in Australia

SECURED amidships across the motor ship Hauraki, her gleaming sides covered with petroleum jelly to keep the salt spray from the metal, a new American Lockheed Electra low-wing monoplane arrived at Adelaide to the order of Guinea Airways Ltd. on July 30.

The machine, which was under the care of Mr. D. E. Nixson, a mechanical inspector from the Lockheed factory in U.S.A., has been assembled and is now undergoing tests. At the end of August it will be flown to Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, and Brisbane for demonstration flights. It will then be piloted by Mr. Eric H. Chater to New Guinea where it will take up a regular schedule with Guinea Airways’ services.

The ’plane was christened the Cecil Levien, after the former Government

Patrol Officer at Buka (Northern Solo mons), who first suggested the possibilities of the aeroplane as a transport factor in the N.G. gold industry. In December, 1923, Mr. Levien received the first miner’s right issued in the Morobe goldfield area in the Mandated Territory. His widow performed the naming ceremony at Adelaide on August 14.

The new Lockheed Electra is the first of its class to be imported into Australia.

Each of its two Pratt and Whitney nine cylinder radial air-cooled engines develop 450 h.p. The machine has a maximum speed of 210 m.p.h., and a cruising speed of 195 m.p.h. It is equipped with accommodation for 10 passengers, and has a freight carrying capacity of 3,700 lbs.

The ’plane is of all-metal construction, is fitted with Hamilton Standard controllable pitch propellers, and embodies every modern device for comfort and operation.

In size it is 38ft. long and has a wing span of 55ft. Its oil capacity allows for 12 gallons of Aero Mobiloil Green Band, and its fuel tanks will carry 161 gallons of Stanavo aviation gasoline.

The monoplane is being tested in Adelaide by Mr. Vernon Dorrell, who arrived in Australia from San Francisco on July 26. One of Pan American Airways foremost aviators, Mr. Dorrell has been borrowed by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to instruct Guinea Airways pilots in the manipulation of the new Electra.

The latest addition to Guinea Air ways fleet a new Lock heed Elec tra mono plane, capable of 210 m.p.h.