AIRSHIP FOR POLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19761, 12 April 1926, Page 10

AIRSHIP FOR POLE

LEAVES ROME FOR ENGLAND. VISION OF THE FUTURE. (Press Association—Bv Telegraph—Copyright.; LONDON, April 1L (Received April 11, at 11.5 p.m.) Great interest is being aroused by the departure of the Norge from Rome for Puiham, where it is expected to arrive this morning or afternoon. The airship will be driven at an economical speed of about 40 miles an hour, and will not land anywhere on the journey, which should occupy 30 hours. At Pulham it will be put into a shed to take in fuel and replenish the hydrogen gas in readiness for the flight to Oslo and Spitzbergen, the latter being the base from which the airship will get out on the voyage to the North Pole. The jjritish Air Ministry is giving all the assistance possible. Major Scott, the officer in chairze of airships, is coming from Rome in the Norge. Captain Amundsen hopes that now he will be able to make such a survey of the central Polar region as to settle the vexed question whether there are islands of any considerable extent there. Explorers of to-day agree, says the Observer’s aeronautical expert, that there will be no insuperable obstacle to the eventual establishment of air traffic routes across the Polar regions, connecting Britain with China and Japan and reducing the time now taken in transit by more than 50 per cent.—A. and N.Z. Cable.