Antarctica 1920s
From Wilkins' Polar Exploration by Land Sea and Air film, this extract covers vision taken on Antarctica including on a flight over the continent.
‘London Bridge’ in the Antarctic.
His experiences on the Canadian Arctic Expedition convinced Wilkins that the Poles were best assailed by way of plane rather than boats or dog sleds. It had been hoped that the first test of his hypothesis would happen on Shackleton’s Quest voyage but bad weather prevented them collecting an aircraft in South Africa.
Getting the Vega into position for a sea take-off and landing
Joining up with William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, allowed him to make a further ventures to Antarctica a few years later culminating in his and Ben Eielson’s great 12 hour flight along the coast just before Christmas 1928. On it they identified new land and were able to correct previous charts that had incorrectly identified land as islands or vice versa.
Loading up on the William Scoresby
In aggregate with others preceding it, that flight gave Wilkins the distinction of having identified more unchartered land by air than any living person in history.
More images
Images are from both the Byrd Polar & Climate Research Center and the State Library of South Australia.