This fascinating picture was taken by Mr. Haakon Hammer from a Junker Commercial plane at 3 o'clock in the morning over Ymer Harbour, within the Arctic Essnark Glacier is seen bathed in midnight sunlight. might have belonged to the group fof Japanese islands until volanie eruptions buck in the ages set her adrift. But it is dificult to realize and recognize any tropic element as we fly over and gaze down on this mass of fee and snow.
Except for the. coal mines and some Arctic birds, we found no sign of life. No Exkimos can exist in these desolate regions, not even polar bears, musk oxen or reindeer. Several years th reindeer land polar "bears were found on Spitzbergen, but they have all been killed of.
Open Water in Summer 87° N.
Due to the accident to the Amundplane we did not make: any effort to reach the Pole, but from what we suw of the pack ice we found that there was a great deal of open water, which appeared to live leads or lakes over the ice. Just how rough the fee was, ov if the water was just surface water cover ing the ice, we could not determine as the flights necessarily were made in heights varying from 5,000 to 7,000 feet, but our observations ited perfectly with Admiral Peary's reports from other parts of the Are-ie ce pack from which we learn that open water of hikes over the lee may be found in the summer time even up to the 87th degree, We found great dificult' in nay gating the aeroplane as the magna: tic compass wus found to be use-Tess for flying in these fntitudes. am dealing further with this subject in a later article. Clouds and Tog are frequent, but lying very low lin patches, "The sun. is" eon the horizon from the middle of May until late August and the average temperature dur= me Jue, fuly and August is from 38 10 4d degrees above zero. This will entirely shatter the popular conception that it is always. tremely cold in the north polar regions, On the contrary during. the summer it is a pleasant milli even temperative, Of parti= interest is fact that found practically the same temperature 7,000 feet up in the alr ax down on the surface, During the summer months the winds in the Arctic are light and shifting and atmospheric conditions in gener fare ideal for flying. We found the so called pockets to be an entirely unknown quantity. wanty-one Flights The expedition made in ill 2 Aights and decisively demonstrated the teasability of a Trans-Polar Flight.
From our flying experience in the Spitabergen territory daring the summer of 1923 it had become quite cleat that the aeroplanes to be used for a Trans-Polar flight must constructed in such a manner that they can land and take off equally well from water, ice, or snow. The possibility. of using either pontoons ski as landing gear had been eliminated, and we arrived at the conclusion that a flying boat with especially reinforced hull, and ski equipment for ice land would be the best possible construction. Our attention was drawn to the Dornier type of flying boats as construction most suitable for the purpose.
For his postponed 1924. flight Amundsen had at first, intended to use three or four of the Dornier Delphi type of planes, each equip= ped with one 185 h.p. BMW. motor tut careful enteutations showed that the flying radius of these planes would only under the very best conditions be alvout 700 miles. with fut re-fuelingg and this was entirely inadequate. He therefore changed over to the much larger Dornier Whale type equipped with two 360 han Rolls Royce engines, There ines are not, ax in most twin owe "planes, placed in the wings, in tandem between the wings mnmediately above the hull, This lacing of the motors has the great sivantaye of enabling the aeroplane continue its flight even should we of the motors set out
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.