Roald Amundsen and the 1925 North Pole Expedition

Aviation History  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

At 5:10 p.m., N25 with Riiser-Larsen at the controls roared across ice-covered King’s Bay. The additional weight of extra fuel drums and equipment caused the icy sheet to bend, and water surged up, increasing the drag on the plane. As the Dornier clawed slowly skyward, the hulk of King’s Bay Glacier loomed in its path. An emotionless Riiser-Larsen had a firm hand on the stick. ‘Had he been seated at the breakfast table he could scarcely have looked less concerned,’ noted Amundsen. With its engines roaring at 2,000 rpm, N25 climbed above the glacier.

N24, meanwhile, swerved along the path N25 had created on the ice and eased into position to start its run. The crew had to manhandle the flying boat for proper positioning, and they had to strip off some of their outer clothing as their bodies heated from exertion. Just as the Dornier was about to start its takeoff run, pilot Dietrichson detected a problem. ‘Above the humming of the engine I suddenly heard a noise which sounded to me as if a row of rivets in the bottom had sprung,’ he later wrote. As the crew hastened to put on their heavy flight suits, the ice began to sink under the plane’s weight. A foot of water closed in against the hull and began to stream into the fuselage through a broken seam in the metal skin. Dietrichson chose to continue the flight, thinking that the ruptured seam would not prove a problem when landing on the solid ice of the pole and that immediate repairs would have meant an aborted mission. In moments, N24, with its unwanted cargo of water, sped across the ice and soared into the cold air.

The two airplanes of the Amundsen-Ellsworth expedition cruised at 2,000 feet. They passed over the west coast of Spitsbergen, leaving behind Cape Mitre and the Amsterdam Islands. Fog boiled above the sea, forcing the planes up to 3,000 feet. A little after 8 p.m., the fog thinned. ‘And there below us and in front of us lay the great shining plain of the notorious pack ice. How many misfortunes have you been responsible for during the passage of years, you vast `Whiteness’?’ mused Amundsen.

After several hours’ flying above the frozen mass, the dazzling whiteness forced the fliers not only to don snow goggles but also to fit special blinders over their windscreens. To escape the glare, the planes climbed to their maximum ceiling of 10,000 feet. The aviators could discern nothing from that altitude. To conserve fuel, the Dorniers returned to 3,000 feet, where the engines ran more smoothly.

Things seemed to be fine aboard N25, but pilot Dietrichson on N24 was concerned. The temperature indicator for his engines had begun to rise while they were still over the fog bank, and nothing he tried seemed to improve the situation.

The gauge soared to 229 degrees Fahrenheit and burst. Incredibly, the Rolls-Royce engines continued to hum without a hitch.

At about 5 a.m. on May 22, Feucht informed Amundsen that that N25’s fuel level had dropped below half capacity. The Norwegian determined that it would be a good time to set down on the ice, fill the tanks of both planes from the reserve drums, then abandon the empty barrels and continue on to the Pole. Once their goal had been achieved, the planes would return on the fuel remaining in their tanks. If they ran short of fuel, they would land on the ice, pool the remaining fuel in one plane and abandon the other. Then, with extra human cargo, a single Dornier would continue to Spitsbergen.

Riiser-Larsen began to descend in slow spirals toward the ice pack, hoping to find a smooth landing area. The trio debated setting down on the water but were concerned that ice freezing around the plane could crush the hull. The ice pack appeared deceptively smooth from their altitude. Once they began descending, however, they realized the surface was a tortuous maze of pressure ridges piled into mountain-like ice walls. As the Dornier continued to descend, the aft engine suddenly sputtered and died.

Tags: Adventurers & Trail Blazers, Aircraft, Aviation History, Expeditions, Historical Discoveries, Historical Figures

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.