opters Over Moresby

This is the first helicopter seen in Port Moresby—on November 26 it flew over the town and landed and took off from Ela Beach. Its pilot was “Sandy” Wheeler, of California, USA.

Four of these machines are to be used by Australasian Petroleum Company in their oil-search surveys in Western Papua, mainly for carrying supplies, equipment and technicians in dense jungle and swamp country—or so the report goes. It is hard to see where any of these things are to be carried in this skeletonised machine.

Although not clear in this reproduction, the pilot and passenger are sitting in a sort of perspex sphere. — Photo by Papuan Prints,