ANTARCTIC FLIGHT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18066, 18 April 1933, Page 6

ANTARCTIC FLIGHT

WILKINS PREPARES PLANE’S FAST JOURNEY NEW YORK, last night. Preparing for the proposed Antarctic flight of 2900 miles, late this year. Benit Balchen, pilot for the Elis-worth TrUns-Antaretie Flight Expedition, flow the ’plane to New York across country. Ho covered the 2700 miles in HU hours actual flying time. The ’plane will be taken to Oslo, where it will bo placed in the hold of the Pranefjord, the 500 -ton oil burner which Lincoln Ellsworth will use for his summer voyage to the south polar regions.

Accompanied by Sir Hubert Wilkins, the expedition will leave Oslo on August 1 for Dunedin, New Zealand. Ellhworth himself will join the ship there, having sailed from America on August 22 in the Monterey.

Ellsworth proposes to make the Bay of Whales his headquarters. Landing the 'plane on the Ross shelf ice, lie will fly across the Antarctic continent to the Weddell Sea and back, with an automatic camera snapping continuous photographs’. The flight should take about 20 hours. He will not cross the Pole, but will tty eastward to the Filchner ice shelf and Luitpold Land. Lady Wilkins will sail on Wednesday for England. Her husband, Sir Hubert Wilkins, will join the Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition at Oslo.