POLAR EXPLORATION

Otago Witness, Issue 3768, 1 June 1926, Page 53

POLAR EXPLORATION

BYRD S PROJECTED FLIGHT. LESSONS FROM NORTH POLE FLIGHT. LONDON, May 29. Discussing his projected flight to the South Pole, Lieutenant Byrd says the lesson learned during his flight to the North Pole shows that bigger skis must be fitted to the aeroplane and the machine must have capacity for a longer flight, because the South Pole is 1000 miles beyond the great ice barrier, from which lie must take off, as against 450 miles to the North Pole. Another difficulty is that it is land, and not sea, and is 10,000 ft high. lie explains that he could not. understand England’s silence when he returned after the North Pole flight when all the world was cabling congratulations. He was not aware that a general strike precluded England from hearing of the flight. He declares that sheer luck was responsible for his success. Had a blizzard obscured the sun he would have lost his way and the game would have been up. He* admitted that there was always a difficulty in determining whether one was exactly over the Pole. He was convinced, however, that owingr to the use of a sextant of his own invention he passed exactly over the Pole. While travelling steadily north they found themselves travelling steadily south without turning.

“MORE AMBITION THAN BRAINS.* LONDON, May 29. New phases of the Polar flight were given by Lieutenant Byrd, who was the guest at a luncheon given by the Royal Aero Club. He opened a racy speech by

saying: “in starting off for the North Pole we were damned fools, with more ambition than braTns.” He related how his shipmates, unknown to him, had loaded up the machine with such things as ukeleles, Jews harps, American flags, extra boots even a pack of cards.—“ God knows how we got off.” Dealing with an oil leak in the engine, he said: “When l pointed this out to Bennett he wrote on a slip of paper, ‘She will stop.’ I was scared to death, as I knew if she came down there was no chance on earth of surviving. I asked Bennett what we should do, and he wrote ‘Go to the Pole first, and we will discuss what to do afterwards.’ ”