U.S. NAVY PHOTOGRAPHERS’ WORK IN ANTARCTICA

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28530, 8 March 1958, Page 12

U.S. NAVY PHOTOGRAPHERS’ WORK IN ANTARCTICA

[From DENIS WEDERELL, “The Press” Correspondent with the U.S. Antarctic expedition.]

McMURDO SOUND, Feb. 28. United States Navy photographers, flying high above the continent, have photographed 700,000 square miles of the Antarctic this summer. Using trimetregon cameras, Which photograph vertically and obliquely to right and left of the aircraft, they have shot thousands of feet of film as a preliminary to the more accurate mapping of the coastline from Cape Adare in the north to the Uiv Glacier in the south. They have also taken hundreds of low-level shots of Ross Island, on which this base stands, Marble Point, where a preliminary survey for an all-year airstrip is being made, and the stations at Little America, Byrd and the South Pole.

Flying at an altitude of 15.000 ft. they can, in one pass, photograph a strip 500 miles long and 150 miles wide—from horizon to horizon along the line of flight. A radar altimeter gives constant corrections for the height of the terrain below and, working closely ■with the navigator, the photographers allow for groundspeed, drift, and other factors. Each roll of film is 390 ft long,

giving 440. exposures nine inches wide. Photographed in the corners of each shot are a clock face giving the time of exposure, a counter which notes the exposure number, the focal length of the lens used in millimetres, and a data card on which is written the name of the mission, with the names of the photographers on the flight and date. Although 500 miles or, over level ground, 700 miles can be covered by one roll of film, some of the flights are so long that the photographers need to change magazines to complete their mission. The photographs taken this summer will be added to the hundreds of thousands already taken since Operation Hi-jump in 1947, and during the previous two years of this operation. From them the United States Hydrographic Office corrects its aeronautical charts and other maps of the Antarctic. Even to compare a map printed in 1956 with one produced last year is to be aware of the wealth of information which is being provided by this aerial mapping programme, which is being extended each year as new territory is beyig opened up.