Army builds airstrip DPR/TV/1609

On sleepy Lord Howe Island 480 miles east of Sydney Army engineers are pressing ahead with the building of a 3.300 foot emergency airstrip for use when the flying regular flying boat service ends. Heavy clouds covering the mountain which dominates Lord Howe Island means rain and the Army engineers from the First Field Regiment based at Holsworthy know they must finish the airstrip before the wet season begins. Between intermittent showers the heavy earth moving equipment tears the earth. The actitivity proves a diversion for locals whose pace of life remains unhurried. A man who watches with a women the huge and noisy machinery ripping at the ground records the scene with his movie camera. Cumbersome scrapers remove the top soil from the site of the airstrip and push it into piles while a front end loader positions a pole on the edge of the airstrip. The bulldozers move in opening up the eath levelling small mounds and filling hollows and gullies with soil. Gradually the airstrip is taking shape. By now the human watchers have gone and in their place is an inquistive albatross who seems strangely unmoved by the roaring and screaming of the machinery. The Army engineers are acting as a construction agency for the NSW Government and the Department of Transport. The airstrip they are building will be used by light aircraft and in emergencies by planes such as the RAAF Caribou. At present the job is a race between the Army and the rains.