Continued from Marooned in the Mortlock Islands My colleague, Tom Betitis, had only limited time left for fieldwork, so to complete the second half of our agricultural survey, it was important that we leave...
One of the nice things about being editor of the New Guinea Times Courier in Lae in the ’60s was the close relationships you forged with some of the people in the aviation industry....
“Julie, have you got a curved needle and some strong thread?” “I think so, I’ll look. Why do you want it?” “Because I want to sew up a DC3.” “Ooooh . . . ....
Bruce O’Reilly sent in these photos of the plaque (above) and frame of the Glider flown into Telefomin to mark Telefomin’s dependence on air transport and the first flight there by Stuart Campbell in...
In September-October 2002, I spent six weeks in Bougainville Province, now the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, doing field work for a study of village agriculture. The first indication of the transport troubles that lay...
A PATAIR DC3, on charter to TAA, registration VH PNB, left Madang for Mendi on a government charter with building materials (no passengers) and on approach to land discovered it had no brakes and so...
During the 1980s I worked in Papua New Guinea for Talair, one of the largest third-level airlines in the world, with a mixed fleet of 55 aircraft flying a complex network of scheduled and...
The first set of wheels that I acquired in PNG, soon after I arrived in my first posting, was a bright red Honda 55 trail bike with an upswept exhaust. I think it cost...
In January 1964, as a licenced helicopter maintenance engineer, I was sent to PNG for the first time. One of the first tasks I remember took place in the Western Highlands when we flew...
In 1951 a decision was made to open a new patrol post in the Tari valley of the Southern Highlands of Papua. A suitable site for an airstrip had earlier been located by Sid...
When I got married in 1969, the idea was to have a year doing something interesting before settling down to kids and suburbia in Sydney. A shipmate from Jardines was Master of a coaster...
Toward the end of 1969, beginning a new tour of duty, I found myself at Wewak on the mainland of Papua New Guinea, again flying a two passenger Bell G3B1 turbo charged machine. This...
George Oakes’ article in Una Voce, December 2011, mentioned one of the Gibbes-Sepik pilots, Peter Manser. The previous year, 1954, whilst I was at Wewak and Angoram I got to know him and the...
I’ve been waiting, bored and restless, since 8 am at the remote Simbai airstrip for a plane to take me back to Mt Hagen. It is now late afternoon. There’s not a lot to...
In early 1957 I did a patrol of many of the villages in the Palei/Maimai region of Lumi Sub-District in the Sepik District. In early February I met up with ADO Frank Jones near...
