DEPARTING SHORTLY

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 36, 6 November 1933, Page 8

DEPARTING SHORTLY

Lincoln Ellsworth’s Plans AMBITIOUS FLIGHT Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, November 5. Mr. Lincoln Ellsworth, the American explorer, left to-day for Dunedin, where he expects to meet his ship, the Wyatt Earp, about November 10. As soon as possible afterward, he will go down to the Antarctic to make his attempt to fly across the Antarctic Continent and back. Mr. Ellsworth, who has been staying jn Christchurch for some time, told a reporter yesterday that he hopes to leave for the Ross Sea by about December 1, after the ship has been overhauled and restocked with supplies as necessary. Allowing a month for the voyage, he places the flight about the middle of January. It will be necessary to sail north again before the end of February, because of the freeze-in. “I hope to be back here after the first part of March, on my way home. I’m looking forward to this flight—it’s about the last of the great adventures left. But I don’t want people to think that I am going because of the adventure alone —there is a service to be done for science.” His projected non-stop flight,'starting from the Ross Sea, will be 1450 miles each way, and, he thinks, the longest flight ever made over unknown territory. Once he has travelled the first outward 300 miles, he will be covering a region where, so far as is known, man has never been before. Mr. Ellsworth wants to probe mysteries of the Antarctic Continent, in the configuration and arrangement of the area. With him in the aeroplane will go a motion-picture camera, clock-work operated. He hopes by means of this camera to be able to show the big features of the continent. “My flight will be a pioneering effort. All that I hope to do is build a framework of knowledge, a framework repealing the main features along the route of the flight. Other explorers will come after me, to fill in the details.” i '4 It is expected that the flight, if there are no stoppages, will occupy about 20 hours. In those 20 hours 2900 miles will be covered. Mr. Ellsworth has no doubt that, at need, it will be possible to land in the course of the flight. His machine, specially built, is capable to landing at less than 50 miles an hour, though it has the great maximum air speed of 230 miles an hour.