Geraldine Man In Arctic Expedition

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31333, 1 April 1967, Page 12

Geraldine Man In Arctic Expedition

(From Our London CorreepdtJ LONDON, March 3L Flight Lieutenant Philip George Pinney, aged 27, of Peel Forest, Geraldine, will be the survey officer of a Royal Air Force mountaineering expedition to explore unknown parts of Ellesmere Island, 900 miles inside the Arctic circle, this summer. The expedition is under the patronage of Lord Shackleton. Led by Wing Commander D. L. Bird, a party of eight (seven officers and an n.c.0.) will leave Britain on April 21 in a Britannia of the R.A.F. Transport Command. They expect to return in early July. Flight Lieutenant Pinney joined the R.A.F. in January, 1958, and graduated from the R.A.F. College, Cranwell, as a pilot. Since November, 1965, he- has served u a flying instructor at Cranwell. He has taken part in two Combined Services ski and mountaineering tours in the Alps and has undertaken three pot-holing expeditions, two in the Pyrenees. The expedition, supported by the Canadian Defence Research Board, the British Antarctic Survey, the Scott Polar Research Institute of Cambridge, and the Joint Services Mountaineering Committee, is to explore a mounI*

tainous area at the bead of the McClintock glacier. Included in a programme ot survey, geology, meteorology, botany and glaciology will be a reconnaissance of the Commonwealth mountain in the British Empire Range. If time and terrain permit, a first crossing of Ellesmere island, from Tanquary fiord to Ward Hunt Island, will be attempted. An expedition to Ellesmere Island was suggested by Lord Shackleton in the summer of 1965, but it was not until last June that a working committee of 12 was formed. A few months late, the Canadian Defence Research Board in Ottawa approved a plan for 1967—the centennial year of Confederation. Travel on the ice cap will be by motorised toboggan, towing Nansen and Greenland sledges. A dally radio schedule will be maintained with Tanquary base, and parties in the field will be supported by the use of airdrop techniques. The estimated cost of the expedition is £2500. Each expedition member is contributing £72 and the remainder is being supplied from vari- ■ ous R.A.F. training funds—- ■ the Nuffield Trust, the Trench- ■ ard Memorial Fund, and the ■ balance of the Himalayan expedition fund.