IN ANTARCTICA

Hokitika Guardian, 14 December 1929, Page 5

IN ANTARCTICA

(By Russell Owen—Copyrighted 1929 by tbo Now York Times Company, and St. Louis Post Despatch. All rights for publication reserved throughout tlie world. Wireless to New York Times.) AEROPLANE EXPLORATION. PURPOSES OF EXPEDITION ACCOMPLISHED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received this day at 9.40 a.m.) , BAY OF WHALES, Dec. 12. Commander Byrd feds the exploration work done by aeroplane has accomplished the purposes of the expedition. Indeed their flights in Byrd’s opinion hnvo been more successful than lie anticipated because of the new land discovered in the north-east. He has estimated a hundred and fifty thousand square miles we: c photographed by the mapping camera. The best weather for flying h'as already gone. It has been found in the Antarctic as in the Arctic that the best time for flying is in the spring or early summer. Since the eastern flight the sky has been free from clouds for only brief intervals. With the warmer weather has come fog and quick changes jn wind direction aloft, which mix up the atmosphere and make an overcast sky S3' that it would be- like flying in a bucket of milk. Under these conditions any accurate observations and photographs would not only be impossible, but there would be a great danger of crashing. The day after the eastern flight all that area was barred by clouds and apparently conditions which headed off Byrd last year have come to stay. So outside of the Polar flight to the eastward from a point in the southern trail about ICO miles from the camp, and a short exploration flight southeast from Little America it seems as though work in the air was not only complete hut could not be continued to any extent after the main flights were accomplished. Occasional messages from home, which shew that people think the ~ight to the Pole may be repeated, shows how little flying hazards in this country have been appreciated, possibly because of the skill with which flights have been carried out. The Polar flight was made at a time when for a period of several days there was clear weather at the mountains, and as it was the plane reached the camp just before the storm, which chased it all the way from the plateau. Since the Geological Party had reported snow storms, clouds and variable winds which would have made the dangerous flight through the mountains impossible, as well as barren of scientific results. On this flight it was necessary to wait patiently for good weather and to take immediate advantage of it when it came. An opportunity might not come more than once or twice in the whole year, so that good fortune had to play its part. There is another reason for not making further extensive flights. If the plane was forced down three hundred miles or more from the camp, on an extensive flight, the crew, provided it landed safely, could hardly, get back to the camp man-hauling the sleds, before the time when the ship must leave. It is hoped the ships will arrive here about the third week in January. The City of New York will leave Dunedin in a few days to sail to the ice pack, and the Eleanor Bolling will leave early in January. They must leave here as early in February as possible to avoid new forming ice in the Ross Sea, which so nearly trapped the City of New York last year, and if the plane crew did not get back by that time they would be forced to stay here another year.