IN ANTARCTICA

Hokitika Guardian, 22 November 1929, Page 6

IN ANTARCTICA

(Bv Russell Owen—Copyrighted 1929 by the New York Times Company, and St. Louis Post Despatch. All rights for publication; reserved throughout the worul. Wireless, lu New York Times.)

BYRD’S PLANE RETURNS

(United Press Association—By Electric

Telegraph—Copyright)

BAY OF AVHALES, Nov. 20.

Co'mmander Byrd has safely returned to his base with the Ford plane, alter the mishap.

BYRD’S EXPERIENCES

A FAKING FURTHER DEPOTS

(Received this day at 9.40 a.m.) BAY OF WHALES, Nov. 21. Byrd and liis companion flew back to camp about midnight, after a day spent struggling with .refractory motors and getting thoroughly tired cranking and ■lifting oil in and out of the .engines. They finally lifted the big Ford out of the snow ridges, on which it had landed and on the tail of a fifty mile wind blew into camp with the speed of a pursuit ship. As they stepped from the plane they, stumbled about but at the same-.time they were so glad to have i tlieb(big; ship safely hack on its home vfirildltTmt they did not care about sweahiViess. b’[“Troubles began soon after we left,” Said Byrd. “After flying an hour it fvas noticed that the gas consumption was unusually high and a small leak was.finally found by June,in the handpump behind the pilot’s seat.-... He packed'it with chewing gum ■ arid' stopped it, ;j An hour and a Hialf Jlat'er : jiil :Three''.niotorS ctoughinf;'%n<| died 'as the Two oriter tanks unexpectedly ran dry, because of the rapid consumption. June jumped for the valves and switched on the other tanks and the engines again picked up, but it was one of those moments which one remembers in flying.” The Commander said they saw the crevassed region about 200 miles south of Little America, while they were nearly one hundred miles away, sticking updikq.haycocks in the great plain of tlie!ijan : r|r. Their next landmark was tlie! geological party whom they .passed beyond the two hundred mile depot. : ; “ It seemed, a crime to watch them plugging:, along down below,” said Jupe. “They, just.(tverep’t moving.” iL Dyari (Irdppridb: from . a)idj fjejatiyesi G\yliich had been rcceivcchiiy;.smdio£hin -yqique mail de:]j,vp.ry. ■ -The course I 'ri;as : then set by Byrd lor the mountains and about forty minutes after passing the geological party the mountains began to show ahead lifting out of the horizon like hunmoeks of snpw. for distant pressure ridges. Much: to everyone’-s. surprise They show ed up first on tlie right of the course instead of the left. Byrd described them as magnificant and June as the most wonderful group of mountains he had ever seen. Some were covered with ice and snow and had great hare patches pf rock.,. Some were dome shaped and others peaked; The plane was headed directly for the mountain in front of Alt. Hansen and theroTa place was found where a base coultQ.be established. The sur■'face’Was |ar from smooth. It was liayd Asn'ori I '\yitljj ridged edges. i/5 -'“Tt .wigs» like furrowed flint” :; 'said" Dean Smith, who flew the plane. “In landing the skis took' the ridges all right, but if you made many landings

there you would cut them right off.” AVitli a few thumps, the plane settled down, with the towering range running east and west in front of it. Bvrd jumped out and began to take sights with his bubble sextant, to establish the position of the base, and got two position lines which checked perfectly with their dead reckoning, so that they have 110 doubt as to where the base lies. The entire flight was a splendid test of navigation under flying conditions down here,-and Byrd is quite satisfied, now fii at jij,s calculations will work out' as he expected. The course was kept perfectly frith the aid of sun and’compass and checked with navigation dqne on way out Cans of oil and gasoline and bags of food were shifted out of the plane. A pile was made of the fuel and oil cans which are painted orange. A hole was dug near them and tlie food cached. AfcKinley took some tong distant photographs of tlie mountains and in landing arid taking off June made some moving pictures. Before starting back, the Commandera and June decided to put fifty gallons of gasoline which had been intended ifor tlie mountain base, into the tanks for the undiscovered leak did not get better, in fact on the way home it became much worse. ' When the time came to take, off,,the machine taxied up to the slope and got away nicely, despite the rough ground. They climbed to five thousand feet, and flew' parallel with the mountains towards the south east for fifteen minutes, so that AlcKinley could photograph them. They then returned to the base from where they took their departure on a course for Little America. The wind forced them to follow a course slightly to the west of that taken on the way out. They saw crevasses while a hundred miles away and hit them right on the couse, so that they wore able then to follow the dog trail home. A considerable distance of the return flight from the mountains had been covered when the motor began to pop and splutter. June as in tlie middle of ;i message which he was repeating. He left it, not evei: stopping to lock

the key which caused the signals to stop instantly, and mjide for the tank' waives. cut off the two cliriibed into the pilots ■:Cpck-pit*M®s^b-•Smith to pump and get up sufficient pressure to feed the little remaining gas to the centre motor. They hoped to be able to stretch the flight to “Snow Mobile,” for it was only fifty miles away. “I was never before so surprised in my life” said Byrd. “I never expected to have all three motors quit at once, and although we knew the gas was low it seemed strange. I looked down and saw we were right over the worst r>art of Sastrugi, the one place where men- on the trail had a trail we could not land safely, and I remember thinking ‘Here’s where we get it.’ I never expected we would land safely, but we,did,' while June pumped gas for pilL;hev4yits ,worth’. He also set the St'hf)jlisetr : to' help in holding down the tail4pi; a; lalidsng and when He had this dene, the machine was so hard on the controls .that it was all Dean could do to hold the wheels forward, so June unshed on the controls on his side to help out, while he pumped with the other.’’ They were desperately afraid the whole outfit would freeze so hard that they would not he able to get the engines restarted and were in the midst of the hard job of warming the motors with torches when they heard Fairchild coming. The other plane made a perfect landing and then their troubles were over.