Over the Mountain

Countries that have developed cargo carrying by air from a stunt into an industry generally have two things in common: rich inaccessible regions and inadequate systems of highways and railroads. All records for airplane freight are held by the U. S. S. R. who claim a movement of 66,000,000 Ibs. last year and who recently flew 10,000 sheep to collective farms over 342 miles of the Turkmen Republic's desert. Canada, serving millions of square miles of lake-dotted, forested terrain above the "civilization line," annually handles 25,000,000 Ib. After the U. S., South America probably stands fourth, but with its 60,000 miles of airways, its immediate air cargo potentialities are as great as any other land.

Four years ago, Pan American-Grace Airways had its first ,big South American freight order, a 55-ton shipment. Fortnight ago, the same line signed the largest air express contract on record and last week reported the successful completion of the first dozen bites into the 1,000,000 Ib. of equipment that it has agreed to fly over the Andes into northern Bolivia to reopen a gold mine abandoned two centuries ago.

For centuries, first for the powerful "communist" Inca kings, later for their Spanish conquerors, an endless stream of gold flowed to their high capitals from mines deep in the gorges of the Andes. Forced labor was used and few except the conquered Indians and their masters knew the exact location of the mines. Along mile-high precipices, over the backs of peaks twice that height, the laborers toiled with bags of nuggets. Llamas could carry only 100 Ib. through that rarefied air, burros--even though an extra set of nostrils had been punched through their nasal passages at birth--about 150 Ib. Men were cheaper, but when forced labor was abolished no paid workers could be found for the job. Engineers of Bolivia's Aramayo Mines for ten years figured how to make profits from deep valley gold mining before they realized that the airplane solved their transportation problem.

The task was to move 500 tons of mining plant and workers from La Paz 60 miles over the peaks to the long disused Tipuani Valley Mine lying almost at sea level in a depression between the Andes. At take-off an airplane must rise from a landing field at La Paz, 12,000 feet above the Pacific, and immediately rise another 8,000 feet to clear the crest of the Cordillera before descending into the narrow valley.

Some pieces of freight are eight feet by four feet, weigh 1,800 Ib. For these top hatches in the airplane are necessary, with tracks along which platforms are rolled to distribute the load evenly in the fuselage. To the job P. A.G. assigned one plane, an old, all-metal, tri-motor Ford (the San Fernando), calculated it would take 500 trips carrying a ton at a time, and expect to have the last load laid down in Tipuani Valley within 100 days. The saving in time over burros and porters is estimated at seven years, eight months; each trip taking 28 minutes against the mule's ten days.

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