Beaver to Beardmore Glacier

[Dave Homewood]

N.Z. PLANE’S FLIGHT TO BEARDMORE GLACIER

(New Zealand Press Association)

SCOTT BASE, January 4.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force Antarctic Flight Beaver aircraft, piloted by Squadron Leader L. C. Jeffs, with Flight Lieutenant W. J. Cranfield as navigator, returned to Scott Base on Sunday morning after a flight to the Beardmore Glacier, 400 miles away.

Approximately 17 miles east from the mouth of the Beardmore Glacier, out on the ice shelf, is the depot consisting of two huts now completely buried in the snow.

These huts are beginning to crack with the weight of snow and will have to be replaced very soon if the depot is to be kept going.

Impossible to Find
Next year if they get a further build-up of snow over them, they will be almost impossible to find from the air, and especially under "white-out” conditions without a homing beacon working at this depot.

This was the case with the Beaver when it arrived there. The beacon was out of order and the party was unable to find the depot. After half an hour searching and with fuel getting low they turned back for Cape Goldie, about 60 miles north, where the South Victoria Land dog team traverse party under the leadership of Mr Murray Robb are camped.

This party had picked out a good landing spot on the ice for the aircraft, and a perfect landing was made at 1.30 p.m.

Mail was delivered, and the aircraft refuelled from a drum it was carrying, but the weather closed in at Scott Base and it was decided to stay the night.

After an early take-off through 3000 feet of cloud, the aeroplane touched down at Scott Base just before lunch on Sunday in perfect weather.

Flight Lieutenant P. S. Rule and Corporal G. N. Johnstone were flown to the Beardmore in an American aircraft on a normal routine flight, taking off at 2.30 p.m. They are taking supplies of fuel, which will bring the fuel dump up to 29 drums.

They will also install a new “Sarah” homing beacon, so that when the Beaver takes off on a further flight on Monday, January 4, the pilot will have no trouble finding the depot.

PRESS, 5 JANUARY 1960

[Dave Homewood]

BEAVER CRASH IN ANTARCTIC

Airmen’s Six-Day Ordeal

(New Zealand Press Association/ WELLINGTON, January 27.

Squadron Leader L. C. Jeffs, now back at Scott Base after his ordeal with Flight Lieutenant P. Rule after their R.N.Z.A.F Beaver aircraft crashed in the Antarctic on January 15, looks none the worse for his experience.

After the crash, in which both escaped injury, an immediate attempt to get in touch with base was made with a hand-cranked wireless—a “Gibson Girl.” Survival equipment was unpacked and a tent pitched.

Distress messages were then sent at regular intervals. Ground level fog for the first four days gave the men little idea of their surroundings. Fortunately there was never any wind, although temperatures were sometimes 20 deg below zero.

The aircraft's wireless was repaired and two-way contact established with base. The men even received telegrams.

Fuel needed conserving. A meal could be cooked in 20 minutes but it took 25 minutes to melt sufficient snow for the cooking. During the warmest part of the day and later when the sun came out they melted snow by sprinkling it lightly on the wings of the Beaver and caught the water in utensils. To keep it from freezing, it was stored in the crashed aeroplane.

Whenever the men moved far from camp they roped themselves together in case of crevasses or slipping on the ice. With pieces of wreckage they marked a strip for an air rescue.

Later a United States Dakota came to rescue them. The aeroplane made an approach but the pilot decided the strip was not safe and circled around and dropped food, books, and a radio. On January 21, six days after the crash, Flight Lieutenant W. J. Cranfield arrived in an Auster. A day later they flew out to the Beardmore depot. Flight Lieutenant Rule is still at the Beardmore depot but expects to return to Scott Base on the next United States aircraft to return from a routine Pole flight.


PRESS, 28 JANUARY 1960

[Dave Homewood]

U.S. ANTARCTIC PLANE

N.Z. May Buy Otter

The Royal New Zealand Air Force is considering buying a plane from the United States Navy. The plane is the Canadian-built de Havilland Otter taken to Antarctica by Sir Vivian Fuchs for the 1957-58 trans-Antarctic expedition. It was sold by the expedition to the United States for Antarctic work for 70,000 dollars in July, 1958. The R.N.Z.A.F. is now interested in having it to replace its light Beaver aircraft which was wrecked in a crash in the Beardmore glacier area on January 15.

The Otter is now aboard the American transport Arneb berthed at Lyttelton. It was brought to New Zealand from McMurdo Sound specially to enable New Zealand experts to inspect it first hand. It is understood that an Air Force group, including the officer commanding the R.N.Z.A.F. Antarctic flight (Squadron Leader L. C. Jeffs) will look at the plane aboard the Arneb today. Squadron Leader Jeffs was in the Beaver when it crashed.

A quick decision on purchase will have to be made as the Arneb is due to sail from Lyttelton on Saturday. It will return to the United States by way of Wellington and Hobart. If the Air Force decided to purchase the plane, it would most likely be unloaded at Lyttelton and taken to Wigram— headquarters of the Antarctic flight.

The Otter is a single-engine plane mounted on skis and used for short range support of traverse parties and ice reconnaissance.

Long Flight
It was taken by the British expedition to Shackleton Base on the Antarctic side of the Antarctic continent in 1956 and was used there and to support operation of the Commonwealth party on the initial leg of the journey across the continent.

On January 6, 1958, it was flown by an R.A.F. pilot. Squadron Leader John Lewis, from South Ice to Scott Base, the longest single-engine plane flight in the region up to that time.

Originally, the plane cost 125,000 dollars. A spokesman for R.N.Z.A.F. headquarters in Wellington confirmed last evening that a technical team from Wigram would inspect the Otter today. He emphasised that no decision to purchase a replacement for the wrecked Beaver had yet been made. But if the R.N.Z.A.F. flight was to continue in the Antarctic next year, it was obvious that another aircraft would have to be obtained, he said.


PRESS, 24 FEBRUARY 1960