World Wide Lives Up
pp. 79-80 · Read in the full issue
Cats In Bengal;
Helicopters In Ng
World Wide Lives Up To Its Name
WORLD Wide Air Services, one of the comparative newcomers to aviation in Papua-New Guinea, is nonetheless about the best known in the outside world.
It is American-owned and re cently featured in a long article in the Reader’s Digest.
World Wide is noted in the Terri tory for its helicopters which it operates on behalf of Australasian Petroleum Company and for other charter work. Originally, the pilots were Americans, but now most of them are Australians, who have learned the technique in the last couple of years.
Recently World Wide helicopters have been assisting the Dutch Gov ernment across the border to set up camps for a big scientific ex pedition that is shortly to take place.
To prepare for this, an airstrip is being put down in a valley in the Starr Mountains; floor of the valley is about 4,500 ft and the mountains tower up some thousands of feet above that.
The helicopters have been flying in food, camping gear, axes, trade gOOdS, etc. (Over)
But an even more unusual job is shortly to be undertaken by the company in the Bay of Bengal— this time using one of the com pany’s Catalina planes.
Four months ago the plane was flown from Pakistan to Port Moresby for complete overhaul. Now it has been flown to Holland for installa tion of elaborate magnetic and seismic equipment. In November, it will go into operation in the Bay of Bengal where, it is suspected, oil may lie below the sea-bed.
The Cat (which will be flown by an Australian pilot) will taxi over the Bay, trailing the gear and charges of explosives on lines. Every few miles it will stop and lower magnetic and gravity recording gear to the sea floor.
The reason why a Catalina is be ing used instead of a ship is that big ships are too expensive, and small ships are too small to be efficient in the kind of weather ex perienced in the Bay. A Catalina can operate in calm weather, and if sudden squalls threaten, can get up and away and return to base before any damage is done.
The operation of World Wide reads like something imagined by author Nevil Shute. But it is real; it works: it’s international; and it makes handsome profits for its owners. It is adventure and enter prise of the best 20th century variety.
t Two native women in Port Moresby each got one month’s gaol in July for lighting illegal fires in the open. This is the first case of women being charged with this offence. Port Moresby’s annual rain fall of. around 40 inches falls within a few months—leaving a “dry” of about seven months. In that period, grass and scrub on the outskirts of the sprawling town become tinder-dry and a big fire hazard.
The natives have always been in the habit of burning off the grass to capture small game.
t Perturbed by the very high infant mortality rate at Manihiki, Northern Cooks—it is not much better on sorm other islands of the Group—the Cools Islands Administration has appointee a special Welfare Nurse to study the problem and to instruct mothers in child welfare. Mrs. H. M. R. Paget who has been in business in the Cook Islands and has also held s position in the administrative de partment of the Cook Is. Healtl Department, was to undertake £ special course before proceeding north from Rarotonga in August.