Byrd Antarctic Expedition 1928.
Richard E. Byrd
"In 1928,
Admiral Byrd began his first expedition to the
Antarctic involving two ships, and three airplanes: Byrd's
Flagship was
The City of New York; a
Ford Trimotor called the
Floyd Bennett (named after the recently deceased pilot of Byrd's previous expeditions); a
Fairchild FC-2W2, NX8006, built 1928, named "
Stars And
Stripes" (now displayed at the
Virginia Aviation Museum, on loan from the
National Air and Space Museum); and a
Fokker Universal monoplane called the
Virginia (Byrd's birth state). A base camp named "
Little America" was constructed on the
Ross Ice Shelf and scientific expeditions by snowshoe, dog-sled, snowmobile, and airplane began. Photographic expeditions and geological surveys were undertaken for the duration of that summer, and constant radio communications were maintained with the outside world. After their first winter, their expeditions were resumed, and on
28 November 1929, the famous flight to the
South Pole and back was launched. Byrd, along with pilot
Bernt Balchen, co-pilot/radioman
Harold June, and photographer
Ashley McKinley, flew the Ford Trimotor to the South Pole and back in 18 hours, 41 minutes. They had difficulty gaining enough altitude, and they had to dump empty gas tanks, as well as their emergency supplies, in order to achieve the altitude of the
Polar Plateau. However, the flight was successful, and it entered Byrd into the history books. After a further summer of exploration, the expedition returned to
North America on 18 June
1930.
A 19 year-old
American Boy Scout,
Paul Allman Siple, was chosen to accompany the expedition. Unlike the 1926 flight, this expedition was honored with the gold medal of the
American Geographical Society. This was also seen in the
1930 film With Byrd at the South Pole in which it covered his trip there.
Byrd, by then an internationally recognized, pioneering
American polar explorer and aviator, served for a time as Honorary
National President (1931--1935) of
Pi Gamma Mu, the international honor society in the social sciences. In 1928, he carried the
Society's flag during a historic expedition to the Antarctic to dramatize the spirit of adventure into the unknown, characterizing both the natural and social sciences"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Byrd
- published: 21 Nov 2011
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