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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 1542.PDF
696 OUTBACK AIR TRANSPORT . . . —this must be as high a figure of air travellers as in any com munity in the world. This practice of "borrowing" was, I found, highly developed. By telephone one agent would borrow from, or lend to, another down the route. It seemed efficient, delightfully personal and certainly less costly than a teleprinter seat-booking system. I was especially interested in the ground facilities offered at these utility airfields. We have something of the same problems at home—in Scotland, for example—in providing facilities for sparse traffic at lowest cost without cutting into safety margins. Most of the runways I saw were natural earth or part grass. At Tooraweenah, which had only just been taken over by the Depart ment of Civil Aviation, I was introduced to a likeably keen young man in overalls who was their representative. After a week's training at another airfield, he was on six months' probation. I asked him whose responsibility it was to see that the runways were serviceable. The young man said it was his. What if there are too many loose stones? They are rolled. Who rolls them? I do. Who operates the fire tender? I do. One day, elsewhere, it was with the local Butler agent that I went out in a car to drive off a few cattle that had strayed on to the runway. They moved reluctantly. Too fat and contented, the agent said. Which seemed quite true, though one of the mysteries of Australia is how animals contrive to get nutriment at all from the odd wisps of dry vegetation which are all one can see for miles on some of the flat dry stretches. It was sheer delight to meet some of these local agents. All seemed to have additional interests, of course. Most served on some public body—a member of the shire council, or maybe even as mayor of the town. They, too, turned a hand to anything on the airfield. And so did the pilots when necessary. At Coonamble, for example, I found myself taking turns with the two pilots and the local agent in pumping by hand 160 gallons into the Heron. The agent, Mr. Fletcher, apologized afterwards that I had been pressed into service. As he had served on the Reserve in the last war, and had been wounded in France in World War I, and had served Her Majesty in the South African campaigns, I cannot think any kind of apology was due from him to me. Undoubtedly this readiness to lend a hand at anything that needs doing is one of the things that makes these services possible. Looking still rather doubtfully, maybe, at the rough surface at Tooraweenah I asked how many accidents they had had. None, they said, excepting we once had a Dragon taxi into a ditch. The record of these companies certainly is remarkable. Ansett Air ways told me they had had but one accident in 16 years and that, believe it or not, was when an aircraft collided with a railway engine—and compensation was paid to the air company. The terminal buildings too were, to say the least, austere. Again at Tooraweenah I found two wooden hutments used for passenger reception and stores, a shelter for the fire tender, and then out to the left a sentry-box structure marked "Men" and way out over on the other side a similarly shaped structure marked "Ladies." I immediately took out my camera to photograph what I thought to be typically frugal bush facilities. At the next stop, however, the two central hutments were reduced to one; further along the route this one hutment was dispensed with and all that remained were the two boxes in splendid isolation, the sole buildings on the landscape for miles around. Later, Air Marshal R. Williams, Director-General of Civil Aviation, told me something of the development plans which he had in hand Butler Air Transport's operations manager, Capt. T. R. Young, was a recent visitor to this country. The photograph was taken when he went to Vickers-Armstrongs' Weybridge works to see the Viscount production line; with him are (left) two colleagues, Capt. E. Avery and Mr. T. Williams and (right) Mr. R. C. Handasyde, Vickers-Armstrongs' sales manager. FLIGHT Dubbo is no one-horse town—as the Mayor, Aid. L. H. Ford, and the Town Clerk, Mr. V. Mathews, seen here, demonstrated to the author. for the airfields scattered over a continent, and for which his department is responsible. Included was an item intended to make these essential passenger facilities less widely separated, and attached to some other building so that progress to their shelter was a little less remarked. I must report that almost the last outback town I visited was Dubbo. I had heard of Dubbo before. It is an alternative air port for Sydney. It appears that on one occasion an aircraft with Sir Miles Thomas was diverted there. On eventually reaching Sydney he was interviewed by newspapermen and the story, as they gave it to me, was as follows. "What do you think of Dubbo, Sir Miles?" "Well," was the reply (and I've no doubt it was in charac teristic good humour), "Dubbo is what I understand you would call a one-horse town, but I imagine that in this case the horse must have left some time ago." This remark, duly publicized of course, made Alderman Ford, the Mayor of Dubbo, hopping mad. Words were exchanged. Suffice it to say that the Mayor was mollified. I did in fact meet the Mayor of Dubbo (I believe, indeed, he is also Mr. Butler's local agent). He referred to this famous occasion when Sydney airport was closed-in, and over 200 international travellers found themselves seeking accommodation in the town of Dubbo (total population 11,000). With the help of the Mayor they were—ultimately—accommodated. I have no doubt that Sir Miles would agree with me that Dubbo is fortunate in having such an energetic and zealous individual as its first citizen. Thanks to him Her Majesty will be making her one visit to the New South Wales outback at Dubbo, and when I left him the Mayor was telling the agricultural-show committee men that they must put on a real bull-dogging and steer-throwing show for the Royal visit. The whole point about this diversion, however, is that whilst to the regular air traveller on the international routes Dubbo must seem a rural spot, compared with the other outback places which I saw it is a veritable metropolis. Just one word about the Butler company. Mr. Arthur Butler himself, in some pleasantries about political views, described him self as "an anti-nationalizing socialist," and claimed his company to be up-to-date socialism. He has made it possible for the staff to take up shares, and I understand that 93 per cent of them have in fact done so. Together with their (hard) working chairman they hold 48 per cent of die issued stock. I must say that of those whom I came across all took the most lively interest in the company of which they owned a part. In another aspect of operations Butlers shared a problem common to many of these domestic Australian companies. Apart from one Heron (to be joined this month by a second machine) they operate DC-3s. The very important question arises as to how long these machines can continue their yeoman service, and the operators are obviously very concerned with the problem of replacements. The machine about which I had many questions was the projected Handley Page H.P.R.3. Some observers seemed disposed to think that the small operators could not afford replacements at all. Certainly, if the cost of a new machine is to run into six figures, and it is to replace a DC-3 bought at a bargain price of around £10,000, quite new questions of capital liabilities arise. On the other hand, one thing seems very clear to me: the growth of air travel within the Australian continent cannot now be checked. Its influence upon the development of the nation is far too profound. Ultimately it will not be a matter of whether they can afford the most suitable new machine, but whether, from the national point of view, they can afford to do without it.
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