Evening star., 1926-05-18

Continued from First Pageo
II suddenly has become a center Of in
| terest with the landing Of the Amund
| Ellsworth Mobile transpOlar eN'
| pedition.
| Rumors running over Alaska about
| the landing of the white men brought
| Eskimos from all parts of the country
| To see the airship. now being dis,
| mantled on the beach. The metal
! frame of the ship now seems like the
| skeleton of a prehistoric monster, all
| the silk and canvas being stripped off
Sunday morning an airplane suddenly
appeared In the blue sky. 1t proved
on landing to carry camera opera
tor. come to take movies of the dis
| mantling Of the Norge. Two hours
later another plane arrived for Il
similar purpose.
Mobile Analyses Flight.
Col. Mobile. commander of the
Norge, in commenting on various as
poets of the success of the flight of
the Norge has this to say:
THE magnetic compasses func-
toned. regularly, as foreseen. in ac-
| cordance with experiences met be-
fore in the Arctic and as stated be
fore the hop.off. We flew so far from
| the magnetic pole. 400 miles, that
| no trouble was to be expected. This
was foreseen, but we could really
trust only in the compass deviation
chart0 that we used in order to con
troll the magnetic compa sses. This
control made it possible to steer when
the sun compass could not function
the sun being hidden by clouds or
fog.
The radio gonimeter, which was OF
great Importance before our arrival
at SpitZbergen, especially on the way
to Leningrad and Kings Bay, could
! not be used very much in the trans
polar flight. However. it worked regu
larly until we were in 81 degrees of
latitude on the American side of the
Pole. but later ii could not work. the
antenna being covered by ice.
This was not very important. be
cause the direction was so we'll point
ed out by the magnetic compasses and
the sun compass that Point Barrow
could easily be reached.
Praises Ships Utility.
The airship worked wonderfully. Ii
has made 71hour flight from Rome
| to Alaska in spite of having to face
| bad weather and strong winds, in
creaSinG now and then to storms, over
Northern France, Northern Russia
| Barents Sea and Bering Sea. ! am con
| vinced that ship of another type
could not have covered this immense
distance. l would not have made the
| flight if it had been made with an
other ship.
| THE peculiar quality of the ship
| lies in it's strength. Notwithstanding
| it's useful load, SO big that in Spitz
bergen we could take on board fue
enough to fly 1000 miles. Our norma
speed during the flight was about 81
miles an hour, and sometimes, wher
| the wind was fast about 60. miles ar
hour. If it had been necessary we
could have made II miles an hour
| this speed being the maximum OF the
ship.
MANY critics in different coun
tries, and in Italy. too stated belore
we left that an S,300.cubic-meter shlf
was too small for the fight. They
| said we ought to have chosen
greater one by far. Nobody knows
| better than myself the qualities OF
| the Norge. The results of the flight
have proved that the criticism was
not well based.
Had No Anxiety About Ice.
Before leaving ] had no serious
anxieties about the danger of ice Gov
ering the envelope. having made ex'
periments in my laboratories during
the Winter. In fact, during the trans
polar flight l did not consider IL a
serious risk for the ship to be ioaded
down by ice on the case on the en-
yelope. We had, however. seVerai
times serious trouble by ice forming
~ .la ,,orio,,c netttallic partS of the
shin In order to stop ice from being
thrown on the envelope by the pro
pellers we had to reduce the speed or
the two lateral engines. This danger
troubled us much on the flight.
Can Overcome Trouble.
However. am convinced this
difficulty can be easily avoided on
the next flight. either by covering
the metallic ropes with fabric or nav
ing the propeller run inside a protec-
tional ring. OF course. ice forming on
the envelope without doubt represents
additional weight. but not such big
one that the extra weight is or I'M
portance.
"It Is possible that the forming OF
ice might have had Importance II
the ship had been blown about In 1oG
for a long time. | noticed that the
ice covering began to form When we
went higher I cannot be sure that II
we had continued the flight into FOG
; the danger would have been very
great.
.The gas walls functioned perfectly
No ice formed on these, because the
slaves were protected against the colo
air of the fog by special coverings anc
,boir metallic parts by a special SUD