ANTARCTIC CHALLENGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20088, 27 October 1928, Page 10

ANTARCTIC CHALLENGE.

EMPLOYMENT OF AIRCRAFT,"

NORTH POLAR VENTURES*

ANDREE'S FATAL ATTEMPT,,

EXPERIENCE RECENTLY GAINED.

BY COMMANDER HICHARD E. BYR]>,

No. n.

Polar expeditions by air are not entirely new. As long ago as 1897 an attempt was made to reach the North Pole by balloon. Two years previously Salomon Andrea, chief examiner in the Pioyal Patent Office of .Sweden, had conceived the idea of utilising by balloon the southerly winds which at certain seasons are known to blow strongly in the Arctic regions, and to finance his venture had soon raised £7OOO by popular subscription. Exploring was not so expensive in those days as it is now. Ho then had constructed for hi 3 use the largest balloon known up to thai, lime, seventy-five feet in diameter, with a closedin wicker basket completely equipped as living quarters for two men. Carrier pigeons were taken along for communication, and ene;:gh concentrated food to last four months was suspended by ropes from the basket. No detail was neglected, and if it had not been for tho difficulty of navigating a balloon even under the most favourable conditions the expedition might have succeeded. As it was, Andree and his men waited almost a year for a favourable wind. In 1897 they sailed away into the noth. One carrier pigeon, released forty-six hours #after the start, was picked, and that was all. Neither Andree nor his companions were ever heard from again. Amundsen the Pioneer. It was many years later before Iheavier-than-air machines had been developed to the degree where they could be used with confidence. Amundsen, I think, was tiie first to see their possibilities in the polar regions. He first brought up the subject long before the World War, and in 1914 actually bought a Farman biplane mounted on skis, but on account of the war he could not make use of it. Sir Douglas Mawson had tried out a sledge equipped with an airplane motor and propeller in his 1911 expedition, but had found it of small utility. Tho use of airplanes was proposed to Peary before his expedition of 1903, which discovered the North Pole, but, although he was much interested in them, he wisely refrained from experimenting with the crude machines of that day. There were no serious attempts at aerial navigation in tho Arctic regions until the MacMillan expedition in 1925. The Author's Experiences. My own experience with, the sort of long-distance flying that -would be of use in reaching the pole began in 1919, when I was placed in charge of the navigational preparations for the navy's NC type hydroplanes. One of these <!raft, the NC-4, piloted by Lieutenant-Commander Read, was the first to cross the Atlantic by air, although one stop had to be made at Azores. A few weeks later the English "Vickers-Vimv bombing plane, piloted by Captain Alcock and Lieutenant Brown of the British Army, flew it in oik" hop, at an average speed of one hundred and twenty miles an hour, and completely confirmed the possibility of sustained longdistance flight. The Mac Mi 11 an expedition in 1925, sponsored by the National Geographic Society, and undertaken with the co-operation of tho United States Government to study the uncharted regions between Alaska and the North Pole, was my firrft opportunity to learn polar flying conditions at first hand. Under the command of MacMillan the expedition arrived at Etah on the coast of Greenland on August 2, 1925. I had command of the naval aviation unit attached to the expedition, consisting of three Loening the NA-1, NA-2, and NA-3. These ingenious planes were equipped with landing pontoons and in addition carried wheels which could be folded back in such a way that they did not.interfere when ls.nding in water. For use on snow and ice, skids were provided, to be attached in place of the wheels. They were powered with water-cooled Liberty motors, inverted so that the propellers would clear the landing pontoons. MacMillan's Planes. Two days after reaching our base tho planes had been unshipped from the decks of the Peary and were completely assembled. But our work was hampered by bad weather, tho Arctic summer proving one of tho "worst iti years. When *«i preparations had been completed only fifteen daysjoi summer remained, and of these only three and three-quarter days were good for flying, two fair, and one indifferent. In spite oi that, our little fleet flew over 5000 miles, counting all flights, and covered 30,000 snuare miles, much of which was inaccessible to loot travellers. . . Although our planes were equipped witu radio, it was also proposed to take carrier pigeons, to be used in case a bad crash should render both plane and radio useless. Experiments proved them to be of no help, due to attacks by Arctic falcons. Our skids were found to bo of limited value. By late summer tho sun had so roughened and corrugated the snowcovered ice that landing anywhere else than in an open lead was impossible. Magnetic Compass Useless. Navigatiug was not the least of our troubles, for in tho area between the magnetic and the true pole a inagtie ic compass is very nearly useless. Uurs pointed cast most of the time, and when tho weather was clear enough Bumsteact s sun compass was used, an invaluable instrument of which I shall have moie o sav later on. Wo found that at one point, in'addition to the calculated variation ot 103 degrees in tho standard compass, there was an additional error of 30 degrees tor which there was no way to account, inis complication furnished us with several unpleasant thrills. , One dav Floyd Bennett and I. m tho NA-1 and Nold, one of the navy s ablest pilots, in the NA-3, were flying at a fair elevation, when we became separated by cloud formations. When we finally located the NA-3 again it was a dot m the distance, flying straight for the Norto Pole. We gave our machine everything sh« had and by pushing her to the utma caught up with Nold and turned him back. The course he was travelling, due to an instrument error, would have mean certain death.