Polar Flight Planned With Light Plane

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31584, 23 January 1968, Page 1

Polar Flight Planned With Light Plane

A 64-year-old American pilot, Mr Max Conrad, is expected to land at Christchurch next Monday after crossing the Antarctic during a solo flight round the world in a light aircraft.

Mr Conrad, who is noted for his long flights, was to have made this flight last year, but at the last minute it was called off.

The .Royal New Zealand Aero Club has been notified of the flight, and the Canterbury Aero Club has been asked to act as an official observer at Christchurch. Confirmation is still awaited that Mr Conrad left St Louis, Missouri, on January 15. He was to fly south in a Piper Aztec by way of Panama, Chile and Argentina, landing in the Antarctic at Argentina’s Teniente Matienzo base on the Antarctic Peninsula. From there his course is to the General Belgrano base on the Weddell Sea coast and on to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and McMurdo Station. From Christchurch the course is to Brisbane, Indonesia, Japan, the Alleutian Islands, Alaska, over the North Pole to Norway, on to Ireland, and then back to the United States.

Only one light aircraft has flown across the Antarctic over the South Pole. It was a single-engined de Havilland Otter piloted by Squadron Leader J. Lewis, chief pilot of the Commonwealth TransAntarctic Expedition. On January 6, 1958, he flew 1450 miles in 11 hours from South Ice to Scott Base. The last global flight over the North Pole and South Pole was made by a Boeing 707. The flight began and ended at Honolulu. It took 51 hours 27 minutes. The Piper Aztec is a sixseater aircraft. In other flights Mr Conrad removed the seats and installed a portable fuel bladder to extend the range beyond 1250 miles.

, Mr Conrad used a Piper 1 Aztec in 1961 when he flew 125,946 miles around the (world In eight days 18 hours (35 minutes 57 seconds to establish a world solo record for a light aircraft.