Evening star., 1947-10-12


stalled the newest and finest mid
he easternmost island of the ahchi-
ms Airfield on the Island Of Terceira
ment involved q lot of trouble for
the Portuguese at first.
mot all the American experts and
engineers showed good will in help
ing us and starting us out in some
of the technical aspects of using
their equipment when we took over, p"
said Chief Engineer Antonio Cor
deiro. I'VE had sleepless nights at
first, not only trying to guess how
to operate the equipment, but also
how to repair it and find some miss
ing parts"
Their radio equipment includes IS
transmitters, and their 13 teletypes,
which handle most of the Atlantic
air relay traffic, deal with an aver
age of 100000 words day.
Several companies are now in
stalled and operating regularly in
Santa Maria. Some of the big Euro
pean air services and American
transatlantic airlines have their
own quarters and messes. Some of
them have installed technical staff
and repair shops. Pan American
Airways, TWA and Air France have
the best installations. Pan American
and TWA have the biggest traffic,
and are most affected by what they
call the exceedingly high airf1eld
charges.
They pay now $50 escudos $3.50
for each landing Of Constellation,
and the same sum for each takeoff
by night. Daytime charges are so
per cent less. Hangar space is
rented at so cents per square meter.
The Santa Maria Airfield employs
about 600 people who live apart from
the. rest of the islanders, the ma
jority of whom are peasants and
ranchers. Road repairs and skilled
work must be done by imported
labor.
Tourist Island Near
There is not much chance of
Santa Maria becoming a tourist re-
sort, but neighboring Green Island
tSan MigueD which will soon be
connected once more with Santa
Maria by an air service, Is minutes
flight, is one of the most beautiful
islands in the Atlantic, where every
body looks prosperous and unwor-
ried, and no one is ever in hurry.
1t has marvellous forests, many hot
and cold medicinal springs and
lakes and rivers swarming with trout
and other fish. There are good roads
and wonderful fruit.
| Almost every peasant speaks or
understands English, for most of
them either have been to the United
States or have relatives there. Men
Of the ATC who are still operating
at Lagens, spend their short vaca-
tions in San Miguel at the pleasure
resort called Furnas, where there is
good hotel, lake, medicinal water
springs, geysers, hot-water swim
ming pool, lagoon for fishing and
sailing and game shooting.
The population Of Santa Maria of
just over 1000 has known better
days than it is experiencing now.
When the thousands of American
troops were there they knew a pros
perity never enjoyed before.
Santa Marienses still long for the
days when American GIs swarmed
their little island, giving away can
dies, cigarettes and lots of escudos
for any small services rendered. To-
day lack of profitable encouragement
mas brought them down to normal
production, which means just
enough to keep the family fed.
Santa Maria offers shorter route
than any other Atlantic stations to
New York, Lisbon and the Mediter-
ranean airlines. While New York to
Lisbon and Southwest Europe via
Gander and Shannon route is 4,O6O
miles, the distance from La Guardia
to Santa Maria is only 2,249 miles.
From Santa Maria to Lisbon the
distance is 766 miles. Thus New
York-Santa Maria-Lisbon totals
3,015 miles, or 1894 miles if the
planes also call at Bermuda, between
New York and Santa Maria. New
York -Gander-Santa Maria Lisbon is
1884 miles.
Admiral Gago Coutinho, famous
Portuguese navigator, who, with the
late Pilot Sacadura Cabral, was the
first to fly from Lisbon to Rio over
the South Atlantic in 1922, forecast
a new golden age for Portugal in
the development of aviation.
Many Fields Being Built
The reopening of the airfield in
Cape Verde Gsland of Sab. which