Polar Aviation: "Air Operations in the Antarctic" pt1-2 1960 US Navy Pilot Training Film

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• published: 09 May 2012
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NEW VERSION in one piece instead of multiple parts, and with improved video & sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEa5wmQ800g more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/aviation_news_and_search.html "GROUND OPERATIONS, PREFLIGHT CHECK, PREHEATING, STARTING, TAXIING, TAKE-OFF, LANDING, PARKING AND SECURING." US Navy Training Film MN-8775 Public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). Split with MKVmerge GUI (part of MKVToolNix), the same software can recombine the downloaded parts (in mp4 format): http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/doc/mkvmerge-gui.html part 2: http://youtu.be/nyZ2GmYpia4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Evelyn_Byrd Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr., USN (25 October 1888 -- 11 March 1957) was a naval officer who specialized in feats of exploration. He was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights, in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, a segment of the Arctic Ocean, and a segment of the Antarctic Plateau. Byrd claimed that his expeditions had been the first to reach the North Pole and the South Pole by air. His South Pole claim is generally supported by a consensus of those who have examined the evidence. Byrd was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for heroism given by the United States... On 9 May 1926, Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett attempted a flight over the North Pole in a Fokker F-VII Tri-motor called the Josephine Ford. This flight went from Spitsbergen (Svalbard) and back to its take-off airfield. Byrd claimed to have reached the Pole. This trip earned Byrd widespread acclaim, including being awarded the Medal of Honor and enabled him to secure funding for subsequent attempts to fly over the South Pole. From 1926 until 1996, there were doubts, defenses, and heated controversy about whether or not Byrd actually reached the North Pole... If Byrd and Bennett didn't reach the North Pole, it is extremely likely that the first flight over the Pole occurred a few days later, on May 12th, 1926 with the flight of the airship Norge and its crew of Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile, Oscar Wisting, and others. This flight went from Spitsbergen (Svalbard) to Alaska nonstop, so there is little doubt that they went over the North Pole. Amundsen and Wisting had both been members of the first expedition to the South Pole, December 1911... 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 Norwegian sealing ship previously named Samson that had come into fame as a ship in the vicinity of Titanic when the latter was sinking); 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... ...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... Byrd undertook four more expeditions to Antarctica from 1933--35, 1939--40, 1946--47 and 1955--56...