American Aircraft

Follows Australia into

£12,000,000 Deal For American Aircraft

When the Australian Government announced on May 22 it it had approved the purchase of 11 turbo-prop Lockheed xtras —three of them for Tasman Empire Airways Ltd.— caused something like an Australasian Incident on the other le of the Tasman, where a lot of people were sold on British •met pure jets.

3T of the criticism came from he New Zealand Opposition ind the newspapers. The NZ nment closed up its ranks insisted that everything was t, in a beautiful world, t of the anger in NZ—and it that some hot-headed Kiwis like to declare war on Aus over the business —was based e belief: hat buying American was dis -7 to the UK. hat by having the same air as Qantas, Qantas was being . a “good position to take over hat the Comet was the better ft —carrying the same num passengers, almost 200 cubic lore cargo, 110 miles per hour was said that the only reason Qantas wanted the Electras hat they would get a good in deal on their present Super illations. By being committed bo-props after 1960, the pros >f TEAL ever being competl n jet-age aviation was that slimmer, wailed the Auckland same newspaper said that ; the Australia-New Zealand >n conference in April, TEAL entatives were kept hanging in corridors, were called in r their piece and then dis . They didn’t know what was on until they read it in the Zealanders are also worried he monopoly that TEAL has enjoyed in its trans-Tasman lons, might be broken by an lian - New Zealand agree which, according to the NZ er for Aviation, has “not been d yet”.

the Electras Will be Used

ably the New Zealand critics least partly right, and that •e has been brought to bear A.L and the NZ Government s on planes it would rather ve had. it is unlikely that the move ased entirely on the desire

of Australia, the bigger partner, to cut New Zealand down to size, as some New Zealanders seem to be lieve.

It is an advantage both for de fence and for the flexibility of peacetime operations to have the aircraft of the two Government companies, Qantas and TEAL, in terchangeable.

Four of the new Electras will go to Qantas; two each to the Aus tralian internal airlines, TAA and Ansett-ANA; and the three re maining to TEAL for its trans- Tasman and Auckland-Fiji services.

Whether they will be used on the

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far, are lacking entirely in Tahiti, and are not up to Electra standard in Western Samoa or the Cook

Islands. ,

Qantas will operate the Electras on its services to the Far East, Singapore, Papua-New Guinea and Noumea, where it at present op erates either Super Constellation aircraft or Skymasters.

When it takes delivery of its Boeing 707 pure jets next year for its services to the UK and USA, Qantas will get rid of all its Super Constellations except one, which will continue to be used on the Sydney-South Africa route, across the Indian Ocean,

More Passengers Getting

There Faster The Electras will carry a capacity of 80 passengers and cruise at 400 mph, at 20,000 feet. They will cut down the flying time between Sydney and Port Moresby from the 10J hours at present taken by Sky masters, to seven hours.

The Sydney-Noumea service will take only three hours 35 minutes in comparison with the six and a quarter hours at present taken by Skymasters.

The Electras cost £A1,065,000 each and the first of them is ex pected to be delivered to Qantas about November, this year.

Port Moresby airport is expected to be ready for the bigger planes at the end of this year. But it will

probably get Super-Constellations at first, switching to Electras later in 1959.