Wartime Scrap Plane
pp. 120-121 · Read in the full issue
Worth Millions Curious Development of Cold War
WE imagined that all the treasi trove left in the Islands in 1! as war wreckage and abandoi equipment has been gathered long ago. Mr. Earl T. Reinert, years-old American engineer, just shown us how wrong we i He was in Australia in Septeml concluding a 3-months South Pac tour. He came out to seek ab doned aeroplane equipment, and has had amazing success.
In New Guinea, literally grown by jungle, he found 50 i Pratt and Whitney motors, still wrappings and crates, and wortl small fortune. He says that he kn< where there are 1,000 Pratt ; Whitney engines in New Guinea i the Solomons. These, with ol equipment located in Hawaii. 1 New Caledonia, Queensland and Wales could be worth £1,500,000. found 150 abandoned heavy Lil ator bombers at Tocumwal. NS their 600 engines could be wc £200,000.
In several places—Moresby 1 one—he found large numbers plane engines which had b smashed up by metal-seekers; t would have been worth large sum The secret of it is that, owing Cold War preparations, the am pated rapid advances in commer aviation have not taken pi; Thousands of planes of the t
sed in the war in 1944-45, which lould have been scrapped, are still 1 commercial use, and the demand >r spart parts for all of them is
;ute, and growing. A large pro
jrtion of the planes on the Islands artime scrapheaps have become
;ally valuable—after having been
lerally thrown away some years 50.
“It all looks fine for me at the omenC said Mr. Reinert. “But I ill have to get those plane parts Lit of those places—and make a •ofit.” He is president of the Mer ian Aircraft Company of Illinois.
During the height of the Fall of istille festivities in Tahiti, in lly, Captain Joe Pommier, of Air ihiti, had an accident in the mpany’s small plane. He ran it of fuel, could not make the air rip and landed in shoal-water off e island of Motu-uta. He spent me time in hospital.
Tofua Passengers
August in Auckland per Tofua in August included: (left to right):— Mr. W. F. Ponder of the New Zealand Ministry of Works, returned from an in spection tour round the Islands.
Mr. C. St. Julian, of Suva, came south to spend a holday with his son.
Mr. Niutolu, of Niue, intends to reside in New Zealand.
Mr. C. E. Sage, of Auckland, made the round trip on leave.
Mr. C. W. Collett, of Campbells Ray„ Auckland, returned from a holiday trip.