Arctic flights of the Aries, 1951

Polar Record ◽  
1952 ◽  
Vol 6 (44) ◽  
pp. 474-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Mitchell

The Royal Air Force Flying College at Manby in Lincolnshire, England, was established in 1949. During a training course lasting one year, experienced pilots and navigators study all aspects of the operation of an aircraft as a weapon of war. Such an all-embracing syllabus calls for a knowledge of air operations, backed by practical experience, in all parts of the world. Those taking part are introduced to some of the problems peculiar to cold-weather operation in high latitudes by a number of summer air exercises in the arctic regions, and by liaison flights in the winter months to Alaska and Canada.

1953 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-158
Author(s):  
D. Bower

It is now seven years since the first R.A.F. polar flight was carried out by Aries, a Lancastrian aircraft from the Empire Air Navigation School; during that period air operations in Arctic regions have become an every day occurrence. This paper describes a series of flights undertaken recently by the Royal Air Force Flying College; it is not intended as a discussion of the special techniques of navigation in high latitudes but merely as an illustration of their application in a typical case.


1961 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 1521-1552 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Montermoso

Abstract Fluoroprene, the first fluorine-containing elastomer, was developed by E. I. du Pont de Nemours … Company and reported by Mochel and others in 1948. However, intensive research to develop specialty rubbers from fluorocarbons was not started until the early 1950's. At the time, there was an urgent military need for fuel and chemical resistant rubbers for service under extremely low temperatures. Consequently, most of the fluorine-containing elastomers were the result of research conducted or sponsored by the Department of Defense. Army experiences in the Aleutians during World War II and in several task force operations in the Arctic regions showed, among others, that fuel hoses became brittle and cracked. Gaskets failed to function. On shipboard, the Navy was experiencing similar difficulties with rubber items. The Air Force, on the other hand, was being plagued with an epidemic of fuel leakage on many of its aircraft. The extraction of the plasticizers from the nitrile rubber compounds and the low temperature of the environment caused shrinkage of the seals and gaskets resulting in leakage of fuels. Obviously, a solution to these problems was to develop new fuel resistant rubbers which would be inherently flexible at extremely low temperatures.


Polar Record ◽  
1939 ◽  
Vol 3 (17) ◽  
pp. 91-91
Author(s):  
F.D.

This Atlas is of interest to polar travellers since Soviet territory covers such a large section of the Arctic regions. We accordingly find that nearly every map of the territory goes well into the Arctic Circle. The two special pages of circumpolar maps are well printed and follow the usual convention for showing routes of expeditions. Insets on the Arctic sheet give a valuable map of Severnaya Zemlya with relief and soundings; there are also insets of parts of Novaya Zemlya, while weather charts and ice-drift charts complete the page.


1957 ◽  
Vol 61 (556) ◽  
pp. 225-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D'Albiac

The one-thousandth-and-fourth Lecture to be given before the Society, " London Airport," by Air Marshal Sir John D'Albiac, K.B.E., C.B., D.S.O., was given on 6th November 1956 at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, S.W.I. Mr. E. T. Jones, C.B., O.B.E., F.R.Ae.S.. President of the Society, presided. Introducing the Lecturer, Mr. Jones said that they were to hear from the most competent man in England to give it, a talk on what he would say was the finest airport in the world. He did not think they had had a lecture on a modern airport before and it was worth while reflecting on previous means of transportation. Every previous vehicle of transport before the aeroplane had had to have tracks made for it to take it from one place to another, as well as terminal stations built for it on long distance journeys. Soma people commented on the costs of airports, the amount of concrete, etc., but when one realised that the air was provided free of charge and itself provided the means for the aircraft to go from one concrete patch to another, one appreciated that the airport was cheap compared with previous forms of transport. Air Marshal Sir John D'Albiac had, he thought, possibly one of the most interesting jobs in London; he met all the personalities, film stars, and so on. He had been there since 1946 when London Airport was converted from a small airfield. He therefore knew every little bit about it, control, runways, buildings and everything. Sir John started his career in the Army. He found that a little too slow for him and so he transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service. Whether he found that still not quite fast enough he did not know, but he later transferred to the Royal Air Force and he remained in that Service until about 1946 when he retired with the rank of Air Marshal.


The recent work of Elster and Geitel, Ebert and others, has added three new factors to the data for the study of atmospheric electricity, namely:— The rate at which the permanent charge on the surface of the earth is being dissipated into the atmosphere, the state of ionization of the air, and the amount of radio-active emanation in the lower regions of the atmosphere. These three factors have been carefully studied in the temperate zone. With the idea of extending our knowledge of them into the Arctic regions, I was granted permission by the Commissioners of the 1851 Exhibition Scholarship to undertake a year’s work in the Lapp village of Karasjok (69° 17' N.; 25° 35' E.; 129 metres above sea level, and about 200 miles south of the North Cape), The work undertaken consisted of the following:- 1. By means of a Benndorf self-registering electrometer to obtain daily curves of the potential gradient, and from these to calculate the yearly and daily variation. 2. To make systematic observations of the dissipation by means of Elster and Geitel’s instrument. 3. To make corresponding measurements of the ionization with Ebert’s apparatus. 4. To measure the amount of radio-active emanation in the atmosphere. 5. To investigate, as far as possible, the influence of the aurora on the electrical conditions of the atmosphere.


The Geologist ◽  
1858 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 238-241
Author(s):  
S. J. Mackie

A Man would see but little of the reality of the world if he shut himself up in his house, and only gazed out from the same window; he would learn little more if he contented himself with alternately gazing upon the scenes passing around him, from the windows of every storey. So a geologist, in limiting himself to the study of the rock-masses of a circumscribed area, would never, by the utmost perseverance, in going continually over the same ground, attain to a perfect understanding of the subject of his study. He must go abroad, either in his own person or equivalently, by making himself acquainted with the travels and labours of others. Our knowledge of the ancient conditions and relations of the oldest rock-masses would not be complete if we limited our investigations to those isolated patches in our own country, which, however important, are still only a part of that great whole, more important traces of which are to be met in regions far away. Thus those very old—indeed, primitive sedimentary rocks, represented in the British Isles in a fragmentary manner, as by the younger or bedded gneiss of the Scottish Highlands, assume in Canada and the Arctic regions proportions of great extent, and consequently, of far greater value. Far back in the obscurity of the past, as must be placed the birth-time of these primitive land-masses, we seem, in our first investigations, plunged in interminable ignorance, like the explorers of some vast subterranean cave in impenetrable darkness.


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