THE BYRD EXPEDITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20901, 16 December 1929, Page 11

THE BYRD EXPEDITION

SUCCESS OF THE FLIGHT. NEW LAND DISCOVERED. A HUGE AREA MAPPED. Special to Press Association from the Byrd Expedition. By Russell Owe*. (Copyright.) BAY OF WHALES, December 12. . Commander Byrd feels that the exploration work done by aeroplane has accomplished the purposes of the expedition. Indeed, these flights, in Commander Byrd’s opinion, have been more successful than lie anticipated, because of the new land discovered in the northeast. He has estimated that 150,000 square miles were photographed by the mapping camera. The best weather for flying has already gone. It has been found in the Antarctic, as in the Arctic, that the best time for flying is in the spring or *arly Bummer. Since the eastern flight, the sky has been free from clouds for only brief intervals. With the warmer weather has come fog and quick changes in the -wind -direction aloft, which mix up the atmosphere and made an overcast sky, so that it would be like flying in a bucket of milk. Under these conditi us any accurate observations and photographs would not only be im]<)ssihlc, but there would be a great danger of crashing. The day after the eastern flight all that area was barred by clouds, and apparently the conditions which headed off Commander Byrd last year have come to stay. So, outside of the Polar flight* the flight to the eastward, and a short exploration flight south-east frOra Little America, it seems as though the work in the air was not only completed, but could not be continued to any extent after the main flights had been accomplished. Occasional messages from home, which show that people think the flight to the Pole may be repeated, reveal how little the flying hazards in this country have been appreciated—possibly because of the skill with which the flights have been carried out. The Polar flight was made at a time when for a period of several days there was clear weather at the mountains, and as it was the plane reached camp just before a storm which chased it all the way from the plateau. Since then the geological party has reported snowstorms, clouds, and variable winds, which would have made .the flight through the mountains impossible as Well as barren of scientific results. On this flight it was necessary to wait patiently for good weather and to take immediate advantage oi t it when it came, as the opportunity might not come more than once or twice in a whole year, so that good fortune had to play its part. There is another reason for not making further extensive flights. If the plane were forced down 300 miles or more from camp, on, an eastern flight, the crew, provided it landed safely, could hardly get back to camp, man-hauling the sleds, before the time when the ships must leave. It is hoped that the ships will arrive about the third week in January, The City of New York will leave Dunedin in a few days to sail to the ice pack, and the Eleanor Bolling will leave early in January. They must leave here as early in February as possible, to avoid the new ice forming in the Rosa Sea, which so nearly trapped the City of New York last year, and if the plane’s crew did not get , back by that time they would be forced to stay here-another year.