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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 0580.PDF
262 POLES APART: North American operational research in the Arctic Circle, and some small-scale South American flag-waving in Antarctica, keep polar aviation in the news. Left, above, is the view (in spring!) towards Ellesmere Island from Thule, the point on the N.W. Greenland Coast at which a vast U.S.A.F. base has been constructed. Right, having gone rapidly to the other extreme, we see one of the Chilean aircraft (a Chance-Vought OS2U-3 Kingfisher single-float seaplane) lately reported to have been surveying and mail-flying in British-claimed areas of Antarctica, where Argen tinian aircraft have also been active. From the north again, the latest news is that S.A.S. are planning a 6,250-mi/e polar commercial route from Scandinavia to the U.S. West Coast; and on this page is further news of the American Operation "Skijump II." Probing around the Pole More News of Operation "Skijump II" THE U.S. polar Operation "Skijump II" is now getting into full swing, and some further facts are available. The two P2V Neptunes which will be doing the research flying between the Point Barrow (Alaska) base and the North Pole were originally modified for Admiral Byrd's 1949 Antarctic expedition, later cancelled. Since then their special equipment has been tested at the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, and also on the snow-covered municipal airport at Bemidji, Minnesota. The aircraft are fitted with combined wheel and ski under carriages, and a number of trial landings are to be made on pack- ice at various points between the base and the Pole. At each site a small automatic homing transmitter will be left, and caches of fuel and other supplies will be made. The third aircraft, an R4D—the U.S.N, designation for the Dakota—has already taken part in "Skijump I." This was last year, when, on the last of twelve flights from Point Barrow, the ski-equipped R4D, with ten men on board, was put down on the ice at a point 820 miles from the Pole. In temperatures ranging from 25 degrees below to 30 degrees above zero—during which, incidentally, no cases of frostbite were recorded—personnel learned much about ice characteristics. Before each "roost" on the ice, two precautionary "touch-and-go" landings were made. When the site had been established, portable chain saws, con sidered the best means of cutting holes in the ice, were used to permit soundings. During the occupation of an oceanographic station, depth of water, temperature, salinity, direction of cur rent, and bottom samples (where possible) are taken, in addition to ice-thickness measurements. Ice-thickness is going to be an important factor in the landings by the 65,0001b P2Vs. Although the "Skijump I" crew proved that i8in of ice would support the 34,000-lb R4D—at least for a short period—they recommended that it be avoided. The expedition is very much a communal affair. The organ izers are the Oceanographic Section of the Geophysics Branch, Office of Naval Research, Washington; the aircraft crews, who are naval, will be housed at the Johns Hopkins University's Arctic Research Laboratory at Point Barrow; some of the aircraft pas sengers are civilian scientists; Army liaison officers will watch the progress of the expedition; three Lockheed Aircraft engineers will observe the behaviour of the P2VS; and homing pigeons supplied by the National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Insti tution, will be released experimentally from the ice-pack bases. A WATER-BORNE "ELEVATOR" FOR FLYING BOATS A Martin PBM Mariner enters a new type of floating dry-dock recently developed by the U.S. Navy. The dock is self-propelled along a 600ft submerged cable and can be orientated to suit any wind direction. The aircraft enters between the two pontoons, the ballast-tanks of which are then blown dry, raising the whole structure and its load. The principal value of the dock, apparently, is to assist in manoeuvring flying-boats to moorings in confined spaces rather than to serve as a repair-base. The smaller illustration shows the ballast-tanks being exhausted.
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