FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1950
1950 - 0069.PDF
FLIGHT, 12 January 195° 47 can handle under existing conditions. They can get plenty of full-earning cargoes in the big industrial centres of Sydney and Melbourne. But when they come to the ques- tion of back-loading from the less industrialized centres, they realize that after all they have still only touched the fringe of air freighting. No airline could stay in the business if it had to fly its freighters back empty. So, while the operators can afford to be selective at one end of their services, at the other end they are launching out on freight-promotion cam- paigns—with rate-cutting. There, by tacit consent, the gentlemen's agreement is laid aside and the gloves removed. The operators are abetted by the sharp contrasts in climatic conditions over the vast continent. All through the year fruit and vegetables are ripening in some part of Australia. Airlines are building up good business by shipping full cargoes of commodities as backloads to cities where they sell at out-of-season prices. A skymaster carries full-rate merchandise from Melbourne to Brisbane and returns with 7,500 1b of early beans. Another backloads with 5,000 1b of tomatoes nearly 2,000 miles from Perth to Melbourne. Flowers are flown from semi-tropical Brisbane to temperate Melbourne, and from Melbourne to Brisbane. From the island State of Tasmania they take full backloads of fish and crayfish for all parts of the mainland. Thus the business grows and constantly opens up new possibilities. Research departments maintained by the two big air- lines study altitude-resistance of different cargoes and de- vise methods by which they can freight an amazing variety of caTgoes. Not all freights can take altitude. The investigators h&e had to find how to stop cakes from collapsing and pies from expanding; how to stop ice-cream from running and cream from curdling. When day-old chicks were carried there was mortality of 60 per cent ustil the operators changed the shape of the boxes to allow better air circulation; then mortality dropped to one per cent. Tests showed that dogs suffered no ill-effects up to 28,000ft and cats could "take it" up to 24,000ft. Grabs and lobsters could stand 17,000ft if wrapped in wet hessian. Flowers and fruits could be carried up to 25,000ft, but above that altitude some flowers wilted and some fruits split their skins. The unusual becomes the commonplace in air freight and novelty cargoes no longer make news. T.A.A. shifts a complete bearing factory—60 tons of plant and staff with their families and furniture—from Melbourne to Tasmania in a series of movements so well-planned that a whole production line loses only two days' work. A.N.A. freights an entire bronze-strip mill 1,000 miles from Sydney to Tasmania together with staff, with a minimum interrup- tion of production. The operation is repeated for a silk and textile printing plant. A fleet of 2f-ton motor coaches is carried one by one in an A.N.A. Bristol freighter over the same route.• -• .:.-,« ...--•.. •-;.- v;:";: • ':•••. ,-•:• " • On both lines the transport of cattle and horses is an everyday affair. A farmer charters an air freighter to fly an entire herd of 45 dairy cattle from Tasmania 300 miles across the sea to a new farm on the mainland. Breeders who once feared to risk their valuable stud stock on long rail or sea voyages now regularly fly batches of prize sheep, cattle, and pigs thousands of miles to compete in the inter- state shows. Beer and fish go to remote inland settle- ments. Three aircraft carry a consignment of 18,750 lb of ice-cream interstate, and a wine distillery flies six 60-gallon hogsheads of wine across the continent. Twenty thousand orchids a week are flown regularly in Australian aircraft to the U.S.A. and consignments of Australian oysters go regularly to Singapore. Away in the north-west of the Australian continent, the end of the picturesque but costly overlanding of great cattle herds has been heralded by a new beef air-freighting ser- vice. From inland killing stations, Air Beef Pty., Ltd., a joint A.N.A. and MacRobertson-Miller enterprise, is flying carcases out to the port of Wyndham. Before the coming of air freighting, the herds overlanded through the dry barren north-west took six weeks to reach the coast and lost 20 per cent of their condition. One Man's Meat ... Australian airline operators do not forget that the expan- sion of their freighting business has gained impetus from a long-continued shortage of shipping space, while shortage of rail trucking space has also helped them, and so have the delays due to variations in rail gauge in the different states. On the other hand, road hauliers can carry huge loads at cheaper rates than the airlines can quote and can compete in everything but speed. Paradoxically, however, the airline operators benefit from the protection which the state governments have been obliged to provide for the railway systems they own. Executives pin their faith to the belief that the scope for development of air cargo in Australia is practically unlimited. Passenger traffic cannot be expected to continue growing at the same ratio in future, they say, because of Australia's small population of less than 8,000,000. They point to the fact that in both America and Europe the curve on the passenger traffic graph is beginning to level out and they say this must be kept in mind for future planning. Discussing this question, the Director-General of Civil Aviation (Air Marshal Richard Williams) said, "Freight traffic has been increasing so fast that airport designers are unable to predict how much loading space will be needed a few years hence. This is a problem that has presented itself in other parts of the world. Some authorities are talking of completely separate terminals for freight traffic." As air freighting grows in importance the planners must provide for more and more special freighter aircraft, faster development of handling methods, more mechanical equip- ment, more freight buildings, special loading ramps. These are current needs in Australia—these and more petrol. Trans-Australia Airlines move factory plant to Tasmania. Another type of T.A.A. cargo—fresh meat for the " outback."
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
