For Tonga, Geic

Uk Expert Sees

Nine-Seater Plane

As Best Fitted

For Tonga, Geic

A two-engine, nine-seater Britten-Norman Islander aircraft has been recommended by an aviation expert as the most suit able plane for proposed internal air services in two Pacific Island territories the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony and

Tonga.

The expert, Captain G. U. Allan, chairman of Fiji Airways Ltd. and an adviser to Qantas, had been asked by the British Government to assess which aircraft would be the most economical and simple to service if operated in the two areas.

Captain Allan completed his six week assessment in mid-February.

In an interview with PIM, he stressed that the choice of planes was completely up to the two govern ments.

He said the Islander, which costs about £Stg.3o,ooo with parts, would be ideal for landing and taking off from coral or grass airstrips.

It was British-made—at Cowes, Isle of Wight—by a firm in which the British Government had an in terest.

Captain Allan said many orders had been received for the Islander from all over the world, including the highly-competitive US.

Airstrips being built

Captain Allan said work on 2,500 :t coral airstrips on Abemama and Manumea Atolls in the GEIC was ilready underway and these strips vere expected to be ready by the end >f this year.

Islander aircraft could also use he established airstrips at Tarawa md Funafuti, he said.

By 1969, Captain Allan said, an ir service between Tarawa and Vbemama, Nanumea and Funafuti /as possible.

He said grass strips were already uilt at Haapai, Vavau and ’Eua in onga and only about a month’s /ork on the strips with bulldozing, radmg and rolling equipment would e needed before planes could be perated on a regular basis.

Tonga’s newspaper The Chronicle

reported recently that $T25,000part of the unspent balance of Colonial Development and Welfare grants—-had been set aside to modernise the three strips.

The paper said the internal air service would probably be operated by the Tongan Government.

Daily trips to ’Eua, and four to five trips a week to Haapai and Vavau from Tongatapu, using Is lander aircraft, were projected.

A N Australian firm, Travelodge Australia Ltd., has proposed a joint project with the Samoan Gov ernment Hotel Corporation to build a 100-room motel in Apia in a $1,000,000 project. Extra finance for the project would be raised outside Samoa.

The motel would be built on the site of the old Casino Hotel which would be demolished. The road on the Casino seafront would be re routed to give the new motel a pleasant beach frontage, A Travelodge representative, Mr.

D. Stewart said in Apia recently that he was amazed at the potential in Samoa and at what little was being done to exploit it.

Travelodge owns about 70 motels m Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

PT'HE start of a new Pan American A weekly air service from Sydney to Tokyo, via Guam, scheduled for February 6 (PIM, Feb., p. 48), has been postponed.

PIM understands that PanAm an nounced the air service before it had obtained final approval from the Aus tralian Government to operate a service from Guam into Australia.

A PanAm spokesman told PIM that talks between the Australian and US Governments were proceeding about the service. He expected the service would start later this year.

Oritish United Airways’ Ap

-L* plication to the UK Air Trans port Licensing Board for permission to operate an air service from South America to New Zealand, via Easter Island and Tahiti, has been with drawn.

The airline applied for permission late last year (PIM, Oct., 1967, p.

Among the attrac tions that will be come more easily accessible to tourists when an internal air service is inaugu rated in Tonga is Vavau's Swallows Cave, here pictured by Rob Wright, The cave was featured on a Tongan postage stamp several years ago. Another Vavau cave that will prob ably have more visi tors than it has now is Mariner's Cave, which can be entered

only by divers.

Mariner's Cave was first described in literature by Will Mariner, a young English seaman who was captured by the Tongans in the early years of the 19th century, and who spent four years in Tonga.