Slashdot Mirror
Antarctic's First Plane, Found In Ice
Arvisp writes "In 1912 Australian explorer Douglas Mawson planned to fly over the southern pole. His lost plane has now been found. The plane – the first off the Vickers production line in Britain – was built in 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers executed the first powered flight. For the past three years, a team of Australian explorers has been engaged in a fruitless search for the aircraft, last seen in 1975. Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."
And inside they found a pipe in a keg of gun powder that had a pipe with clues that mean that there is a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
I have a funny feeling this "Antarctic's First Plane" thing started when an American dared point out that the first plane to fly in Antarctica was the "Stars and Stripes" (built by the legendary Sherman Farchild, and one of his pioneering aerial surveys). Then, as is always the case when an American dares claim a "first" in anything, hundreds of Europeans, Canadians, Australians, etc. with inferiority complexes immediately rushed out and found an obscure case of someone *shipping* a plane to Antarctica before this (which never actually flew), so they could once again show those big-shot Americans that their dicks were bigger.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It was an airplane before being loaded on the boat, then it was just a cool looking tug.
Home of The Suki Series
A spokesman for the team discovering the aircraft issued a short statement, consisting solely of
"Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"
...in an Australian accent.
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."
The plane was made of gold? I guess they don't build 'em like they used to, huh?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Any lucky survivors ? :O
OH no he didnt!
Actually no one was doing anything of the sort until you decided to start the pissing.
I hope you're all preparing to welcome our new Shuggoth overlords.
I suspect I, for one, will.
We are currently awaiting the loading of our compliment of small, lemon-soaked paper napkins for your comfort, refreshment, and hygiene during the flight, which will be of two hours duration. Meanwhile we thank you for your patience. The cabin crew will shortly be serving coffee and biscuits again.
Does equipment ever leave Antarctica? I mean, okay, he left the plane behind, sure, because he didn't need it anymore; does that happen still today? What I mean is, when a building or camp is abandoned, or when a tractor or plane breaks down in an irreparable way, is there any attempt to remove it, or do they just abandon it in place, let the wind and snow take its course, and leave it to archeologists years hence to rediscover it?
It would seem that Antarctica could be, among other things, a pretty cool junkyard. But a junkyard nonetheless.
Take some dogs with you when you drill, and if they start going nuts about any large, plant-like objects you find, leave them alone!
Also listen for strange piping sounds in the wind.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
I mean, seriously, that title is kinda pointless. If it never left the Antarctic, there's a darn good chance it's 'In Ice'. It would have been more newsworthy if it was found somewhere else.
-=JML=-
Can you call a plane that never flew on the Antarctic the first plane on the Antarctic?
Because in that case I'm going to build the first hover-car on Earth.
It does seem as if the melting of Antarctic ice is what revealed the long-lost plane. Global warming, anyone?
-Z
Let me guess: It hid in plane site! ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
It appears Mawson did not fly over the south pole he flew into the south pole.
The antarctic continent is fine. But the Antarctic? Shouldn't it be Antarctica?
Just be carefull of any weapons, maybe you would find an allien warrior base
Since they have found the plane, that then means that the search really wasn't 'fruitless', was it?
-Styopa
Punchline: Nimrod Expedition. Create your own jokes.
What kind of article of this kind doesn't include some interesting photos? I'm enraged! I have no interest in READING about this stupid plane!
TFA says: "exposed by a blue moon (the second full moon in a calendar month), the lowest tide ever recorded at that site and an unprecedented melting of ice".
Tell me again how an unprecedented melting of ice could not be an evidence of global warming?
From another paragraph in TFA: "in 1975 it was photographed after a big ice melt"
So, the ice melt in 1975 was big. The current ice melt is unprecedented, which means obviously bigger than the one in 1975.
You know, the plural of anecdote is not data and we are talking about a single point here. But even then this can be interpreted as evidence of global warming.
Then why did you mention it? The least one can say is that your comment was off topic.
The Wright Brothers were based in Ohio when they started the experiments that lead to the flights at Kitty Hawk. They frequently returned to Ohio to do additional research. Kitty Hawk was 'just' the place that had the right conditions to test their theories because they were pushing the limits of technology at the time.
In 1904, after the Kitty Hawk flights, they improved on the design, with Flyer II and Flyer III. Those were flown out of a base in Ohio. These flights were measured in minutes and miles as opposed to the seconds and feet of the Kitty Hawk flights.
Sure they left Ohio to do the 'first' powered flights. But they returned to Ohio to improve upon that 'first' and accomplish a whole bunch of other firsts.
Alcock and Brown flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919. According to the specs from "The Daily Mail", "the aviator who shall first cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane in flight from any point in the United States of America, Canada or Newfoundland and any point in Great Britain or Ireland" in 72 continuous hours" would win the ten thousand pound prize.
Alcock and Brown did it non-stop. But a couple of weeks earlier an American airplane, the NC-4, was the first to cross the Atlantic under its own power. It took 19 days and multiple stops to do it though.
The Orteig Prize, the one Lindbergh won, required a non-stop flight from New York to Paris (Or vice versa). This was a longer flight than the Alcock-Brown flight, which landed in a bog in Ireland. Lindbergh had a lot more publicity for his landing since he landed at an airport. Some sources say that 150,000 spectators stormed the airfield where Lindbergh landed.
If you think about it, having the 'right' publicity can make a big difference in the history books. You could say that's why Columbus gets the credit for 'discovering' America as opposed to the Vikings, St. Brendan, or the original immigrants heading over the Bering Strait.
Doing it solo wasn't a requirement of the Orteig Prize. The fact that he was able to go from a New York airfield to a Paris airfield was the big thing. It showed that transatlantic flight from one major destination to another was possible.
Several well known aviators, with tri-engine planes and multiple person air crews had attempted it but failed, sometimes fatally. Lindbergh, a relative unknown, did it solo, with a single engine monoplane.
This find was due to the melting glaciers... the planet is doomed.... unless you are warmblooded ;)
FragHARD or don't frag at all
Here is photo taken in 1911 of the aircraft on the ice: http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/2866625141/ (other commenter's have already mentioned how the aircraft came to be wingless).