The Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1925. AEROPLANES IN POLAR EXPLORATIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17569, 20 June 1925, Page 8

The Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1925. AEROPLANES IN POLAR EXPLORATIONS.

Amundsen's return, and the story of liis westerly drift, which carried him out of his reckoning, gives point to the. remark of Commander Prestrud, Norwegian Naval Attache to Britain, who accompanied Amundsen on his southern expedition, that he considered the calculations as to distance and probable flying times were as uncertain as Derby tips. But the safe return of the explorers is another testimony to Amundsen’s ability and leadership, and bears out Dr Nansen’s prediction that with a leader so experienced and courageous, there was no cause for anxiety. And yet it must have been touch, and go with the whole party while they strove, for twenty-four days, to free one of the aeroplanes from the frozen pack ice, while they levelled a starting place some distance away. And it must not be overlooked that the return flight was made from within 100 miles of the Pole, and that the heavily laden machine, in eight and a half hours’ flying, set a course not for the nearest land by any megns, but for North-East Island, where the relief patrol was expected. And there is a surprising touch to the narrative in the fact that the explorers were first picked up by a casual sealer of their own nationality and were thus spared the necessity of making a flight, with petrol supplies running low, to a point within the Hobby s petrol area. Taking the expedition on the whole, it has been favoured by good luck, although the leader Iclt nothing to chance, and there is every ground for the claim that the expedition is the most successful on record so far. These men, if they arc not the actual pioneers of Polar flight, are at least the first to have landed and returned, and their experience will be a valuable guide to later expeditions. With ample supplies of petrol, Amundsen would no doubt have flown over the Pole, but he believes there is no land on the north of the Norwegian Arctic Ocean, and in this lie is confirmed bv the observations of Peary, who sounded and found no bottom at 1500 fathoms at the Pole. His conclusion, indeed, is that there arc no grounds for expecting to make a landing further north, and since he was fortunate enough to find a patch of neater in the icc Jane, and saw no landing place on the return journey, his experiences suggest that lighter-than-air machines will be. the most promising means of reaching the Pole, unless aeroplanes arc used as a means of establishing and supplying a base from which the final journey may be made on foot.

A member of the British Medical Association lias been telling the Education Board that a child, being a young, vigorous animal, should be kept warm by the warmth of its own body, and for this reason, apparently, he thinks that the board should go the limit in the matter of open-air schools. But ho. seems to have overlooked tlic fact that the youngest and most vigorous animals can keep warm in cold weather only when they arc moving about, and that lus argument does not apply to a child that is cramped up, motionless, at a school desk. The Open-air League, supported by the 8.M.A., deserves the utmost credit for the campaign in favour of scrapping old-time schools, hut there is a reasonable divergence of opinion as to the best type of open-air school to take its place. The position was pul very fairly by the chairman of the hoard when he pointed out that the Fendalton open-air school, which appears to he the ideal of the Open-air League, has certain defects, one of which is a lack of proper ventilation when the sliding doors are closed against rain or wind. He was also justified in his complaint that the open-air enthusiasts make 100 much of the unsatisfactory nature of the old schools, which everybody is agreed upon, and ignore the merits of any modern school that is not built on the purely open-air plan. Ore medical man said yesterday that the B.M.A. was unanimous m its approval of open-air schools as against the old mass type of school, hut this point is no longer the subject of argument. What is required is a fresh-air school that will give the pupils a reasonable degree of protection from had weather, and the open-air school, as at present advocated does not meet the case.