| Summary: | Wilkins Party Off To Alaska: Head Of Arctic Expedition Sails With Monoplanes From Seattle./Gets Sent-Off At Pier./Equipment Ready For Hop-Off From Point Barrow In Six Weeks, He Says. IWILKINS PARTY OFF TO ALASKA; Head of Arctic Expedition Sails With Monoplanes From Seattle. GETS SEND-OFF AT PIER Equipment Ready for Hop-Off From Point Barrow in Six Weeks, He says. By Palmer Hutchinson. Special corresopndent of the North American Newspaper Alliance and The Spokesman-Review with the Detroit arctic expedition. Copyright, 1926, by the North American Newspaper Alliance. SEATTLE, Feb. 13. -- Captain Geroge Hubert Wilkins, commander of the Detroit arctic expedition, and the other members of the expedition's airplanes' division, sailed from here for Seward, Alaska, today with their two Fokker monoplanes atrapped across the how and boat decks of the steamer Victoria. Hundreds of persons were at the pier to wish them success in their quest for new lands and in their proposed transarctic flight from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitzbergen. Their departure from Seattle was made just 10 weeks after Captain Wilkins was given the support of the people of the city of Detroit, the American Geographical society of New York, and the North American Newspaper alliance. Within another six weeks, he predicted today, the two planes will have reached Fairbanks by rail, will have been assembled there and put through test flights and will have winged their way over the Alaska mountains to Point Barrow. "We won't lose much time at Barrow," he stated. "We'll have no reason to wait there. Unless we encounter unexpected weather conditions, we will take off from Barrow on our first flight over the unexplored part of the polar sea within a day or two after we leave Fairbanks. I want to make at least one flight in search of land before we risk our planes on gasoline freighting flights back to Fairbanks. The following men went with Captain Wilkins: Major Thomas G. Lanphier, official army observer with the expedition; C. M. Wisely, Liberty engine mechanic, of Cleveland; Andrew Hufford, air-cooled engine mechanic, of Paterson, N. J.; Ray Howard, Fokker airplane test pilot and rigger of New York city; Will E. Hudson, cameraman of Seattle, and Robert Waskey, assistant mechanic, of Seattle. All except Howard and Hudson will fly to Point Barrow. Snow Motors Reparies. Nenana, Feb. 13. (N. A. N. A. Special.) -- After replacing broken castings the two snow motors of the Detroit arctic expedition advance party left here this morning to pick up their trains of five sleds each six miles down the Tanana river and proceed to Point Barrow. The motor trains are hauling supplies to the arctic ocean base of the Wilkins polar exploration airplanes. A. Malcolm Smith, chief of the snow motors' division, maintained an allnight vigil over the motors here, keeping a fire burning beneath each machine. His effort was not in vain. Though the temperature was 6 degrees below zero the motors started instantly and set out without difficulty. The weather continues clear, Leslie Thayer, one of the mechanics of the expedition, welded the broken castings which had been replaced by spare parts and these welded parts are being taken along as spares. Herbert Anderson, 20 years old, of Nenana accompanies the party as helper.
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