AVIATION.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20021, 1 September 1930, Page 11

AVIATION.

ARCTIC ROUTE TO CANADA. BRITISH EXPLORATION PARTY. (TOITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—BY ELECTRIC telegraph—copyright.) LONDON, August 29. The British expedition which is seeking to establish a route for an allBritish flying service across the Arctic to Canada, in a report from the base camp dated August Bth, states:—"We reached the edge of the drift ice, 40 miles off the east coast of Greenland, on July 21st. We had difficulty in forcing a way, and on the way we had to snoot seals to feed ourselves and over 49 dogs. A man with a rifle stood in the bows of the Quest. Eskimos in kayaks (the men's boats, which can turn completely over and still retain the occupant), and umiaks (the women's boats, which are larger) flocked out from Angmagsalik to meet us. "We found a Bite for one base camp 35 miles west of Angmagsalik, and rowed our stores, including 15 tons of coal, aahpre, covering ourselves with coal dust. We completed a four-roomed hut. Then Scott and Chapman, with the dog teams, exploded the ice plateau for a sledge route. The ice was heavily crevassed, necessitating care on the first two journeys. "We start on August 18th to the ico plateau to establish a meteorological station 140 miles inland, from where we will study flying conditions, the staff being Scott, Rymill, Bingham, Biley, and Lindsay. Another party takes the Quest north-eastward to map the coastal mountain belt, because tho proposed air route will possibly cross here. The weather is most suitable for air photography."

[Colonel Sir Charles Close, in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, London, recently, discussing the plans of "tho most important British Arctic venture of recent yoarS," the Air Route Expedition to Greenland from Great Britain to Western Canada and the Pacific, it must go across that zone of Greenland which is least accessible on the East Coast, and almost totally unknown inland. No serious organisation can be undertaken until we know what mountain ranges may emerge from the interior ice-cap, and what are the general conditions of the weather. Thanks chiefly to the munificence of private supporters, Mr George Wntkins has been able to organise an expedition of twelve or four--1 teen men who will sail in the Quest for the east coast of Greenland to work for two summer seasons and the intervening winter The expedition takes with the particular good wishes of the Society, the best instruments we pan furnish, and a little of our monev It has with it specialist officers of the British Armv, Navv, and Air Force, »nd,_it has the cordial goodwill of the Danish Government."]

DUTCH PILOTS STRIKE. DISMISSAL OF VAN DYK. AMSTERDAM, August 29. The dismissal of Evert Van Dyk, formerly Wing-Commander C. E. Kingsford Smith's second trans-Atlantic pilot, caused a strike among pilots on Dutch airlines. All the services were held up, and no machines left Amsterdam or Rotterdam. All aeropVmes abroad return to-day. Van -Dyk refused to accept conditions similar to those imposed on flights to Java for a Dutch flight to India in September. He led a protest against the rates of wages allotted for the forthcoming India air service, the inception, of which has been postponed. All the pilots on strike were dismissed. MACHINE PALLS ON HOUSE. OWNER KILLED AND BUILDING BURNED. ■ (Received August 31st, 5.5 p.m.) PARIS, August SO. A civilian instructional aeroplane, while flying over Rochefort, took fire and crashed on a house, the owner of which was decapitated by the propeller, while his wife and daughter were severely injured. The house was burned. , , ■, A pupil pilot, aged 19, tried to land in a parachute, but slipped through the strappings, and was dashed to earth and killed instantly.