FLIGHT PLANNED TO SOUTH POLE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20926, 4 January 1938, Page 7

FLIGHT PLANNED TO SOUTH POLE

AMBITIOUS VENTURE OF SOVIET

PLANS FOR SURVEY IN THE AIR

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright

(Received January 3, 6.30 p.m.) MOSCOW, January 2.

M. Mikhail Vodopianov, the chief pilot of Professor Otta Schmidt’s North Polar expedition, in an article in the newspaper “Pravda,” discloses a proposed Antarctic expedition in 1938. The expedition will sail on board the new ice-breaker Josef Stalin, with five two-engined aeroplanes and three years’ provisions. The vessel will follow Rear-Admiral Byrd’s route. The expedition will organise a base at Luitpold Land, from where a non-stop flight to the South Pole will be made. The aeroplane will carry five meteorologists, other members of the expedition, and equipment, enabling the establishment of a weather station similar to that on the North Polar ice-floe. The Polar party will remain there for a month and establish radio communication with Moscow'. Their experiences will be broadcast four times daily. The plans include seventy survey flights for the purpose of mapping the South Polar region. M. Vodopianov will be the leader of the expedition. Other aims include further expeditions in the Arctic and a round-the-world flight from Moscow travelling eastward in eighty-two hours.

SAFER FLYING

DECREASE IN CASUALTIES ON BRITISH SERVICES British Official Wireless (Received January 3, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, January 2. The year 1937 was a year of safer flying for British air services. Despite the increase in the mileage, sixty-seven lives were lost, as against eighty-five in 1936.