New Airport Site
p. 19 · Read in the full issue
For Lae
WORK is to begin on a new airport for Lae, New Guinea—“some time after July, 1955.” It will be at Malahang, which is over towards the Busu River and about three miles from the present airport.
The plan for the new airport was approved in 1948 by the Common wealth Government, but little has been heard of it since.
It will be a four-years project, ending with the removal of all the major buildings from the Lae air port to Malahang. The present Lae aerodrome will then be closed.
Officials are not happy with Lae aerodrome where planes have only one way of take-off —over the sea.
Still No Skymaster Service
It was closed to Skymasters in September this year because it had become slippery due to excessive rain.
It was re-opened by the Dept, of Civil Aviation in October, but Qantas —the only company using Skymasters—is still terminating its services with these aircraft at Port Moresby, and running a shuttle ser vice to Lae with DC3’s.
A Qantas spokesman in Sydney says that it will be April or May, 1955, before their Skymasters use Lae again.
Deck cargo aboard Sinkiang when she cleared Sydney for New Guinea late November included a Grumman Seabee amphibian aircraft for use by Australian Petroleum Co. Ltd. in their oil prospecting operations.