Hops About

NZ Truth, Issue 1202, 13 December 1928, Page 6

Hops About

A COLD job falls to the lot of genial Dean Smith, air pilot with the Byrd Antarctic expeditionary force now on its way to the polar seas, but he'll tackle it with the same sang froid and evident delight as a small boy attacks an ice cream. Flying over the icy wastes of the South Polar seas, Smith will get a bird's-eye view of what's what m the way of pack ice, Polar bears, sperm whales and — blizzards. He'll find the conditions slightly different from his native heath — he'll have to pick his own landinggrounds. He wouldn't be one of the party, though, if he didn't "know his onions," and If skill and courage count for anything— well, he'll be there when the whips are cracking. Smith knows, when he's skimming over those southern ice hummocks, that his own physical fitness will count for everything. With a temperature points below zero, for every thousand feet he rises m the air, it'll dron another three points!