Northwest History. Aviation 8. Wilkins' Expedition, United States.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1926
• Subjects: Detroiter; Arctic monoplane; Point Barrow; Frederic Lewis Earp; North American Newspaper Alliance; Fairbanks; George Hubert Wilkins; Ben Eielson; polar ice cap; Endicott range; three-engined monoplane; Beaufort bay; New York; arctic expedition; Vilhjalmur Stefansson; explorers; scientists; Admiral Moffett; Isaiah Bowman; Geographical Society of Philadelphia; Charles Hall Ewing; Geographical Society of Chicago; Anthony Fiala; James B. Ford; Mason M. Patrick; army air service; Thomas Riggs Jr.; Dan Sutherland; congress delegate; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Aviation; Arctic; Byrd; Detroit; Eielson; Ewing; North Pole; Pacific; Stefansson; Sutherland; The Landing; Wilkins; Barrow; Ice cap; Polar Ice Cap; Alaska
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/86284

Ready To Cruse In The Detroiter: Huge Arctic Monoplane Soon To Carry Gasoline To Point Barrow./Arctic Much Maligned./Stefansson And Other Experts Give Advice And Counsel To Headline Writers. READY TO CRUISE IN THE DETROITER Huge Arctic Monoplane Soon to Carry Gasoline to Point Barrow. ARCTIC MUCH MALIGNED Stefansson and Other Expert, Give Advice and Counsel to Headline Writers. By Frederic Lewis Earp. Special Correspondent of the North American Newspaper Alliance with the Detroit Arctic Expedition. (Copyright, 1936, N. A. N. A.) , FAIRBANKS, April 4.—Continuance of foggy weather is believed to have prevented the departure of Captain George Hubert Wilkins and Pilot Ben Eielson in the monoplane Alaskan from Point Barrow today on the 600-mile return trip to Fairbanks. They flew to the settlement on the arctic last Wednesday with a fuel supply for the use of Captain Wilkins' planes in their exploration of the polar ice cap. Easter Sunday here was clear, with a light wind blowing, but radio reports last night from the expedition's overland party north of the Endicott range indicated thick weather prevailing along the arctic slope. Mechanics of the expedition worked today to complete repairs to the landing gear and fuselage of the three-engined monoplane, the Detroiter, and expected to have it ready for trial flights tomorrow or Tuesday. The big ship will fly to Barrow carrying 1000 gallons of gasoline, sufficient to enable it to make an exploration trip out over the unexplored reaches of Beaufort bay toward the pole and return to the advance base at Barrow. GIVE FACTS ABOUT THE ARCTIC Stefansson and Others Offer Counsel to Head Writers. NEW YORK, April 4. (/P)—In an effort to insure trustworthy and accurate reports of the achievements of the arctic expeditions to be undertaken this summer, 10 explorers, aviators and scientists interested in the arctic made public today a statement calling attention to past fallacies and suggesting means of preventing their repetition. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the explorer, through whom the statement was is sued, said: "It has long seem scientific men connected with the arctic that there was more folklore and nonsense being circulated about that subject than any other. "We have noticed," the statement said, "that the headline writers of various newspapers, who are usually careful to give a correct synopsis of political and other common subjects, frequently place a misleading or untrue heading over even those arctic news stories which are in themselves admirable instances of careful and illuminating narrative or exposition. "One of the most frequent reasons for this seems to be that they confuse the arctic with either the north pole, the pole of inaccessibility or some of the other poles in which the explorers and scientists are or may be interested. That is seriously misleading. The arctic is a vast expanse of 3000 miles in diameter, the north pole is only a point not so large as the tip of a needle; while in between are the pole of inaccessibility, the magnetic pole, the cold pole and the wind pole, none of them as small as a point, but none as large as even 1 percent of the arctic. "When Admiral Moffett said, in connection with the then proposed Shenandoah flight across the arctic, that the temperature would be about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, 1000 feet above the north pole in early July, the commentator spoke of this as 50 degrees below zero, where the admiral had, of course, taken it for granted that he would be understood as referring to above-zero temperatures, since he was talking about summer." Those who signed the statement with Mr. Stefansson were Isaiah Bowman, director of the American Geographical society; Lieutenant Commander Richard E. Byrd, Alfred Collins, president of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia; Charles Hall Ewing, president of the Geographical Society of Chicago; Anthony Fiala, explorer; James B. Ford, president of the Explorers' Club of New York, Major General Mason M. Patrick, chief of the army air service; Thomas Riggs Jr., former governor of Alaska, and Dan Sutherland, delegate to congress from Alaska.