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Antarctic's First Plane, Found In Ice

Posted by timothy on from the ice-tractor-cometh dept.

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."

22 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. I claim the movie rights by suso · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:I claim the movie rights by MistrBlank · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'll claim rights on a second story and write the one that has the pilot still sitting in the cockpit with his chest blown out. And several miles below the ice surface there's a temple that's a home to aliens that another alien race comes in to exterminate after the expedition team frees them.

    2. Re:I claim the movie rights by Arancaytar · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, they found traces of an ancient race of tentacled aliens that were ultimately responsible for creating us. Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!

    3. Re:I claim the movie rights by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, they found traces of an ancient race of tentacled aliens that were ultimately responsible for creating us. Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!

      So, you're saying I should not have fried up that batch of giant calamari?

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    4. Re:I claim the movie rights by sayno2quat · · Score: 2, Funny

      You would have been fine, except you didn't post anonymously.

      --
      Sure I sold you robot insurance. But you were attacked by a cyborg. Not covered.
  2. Cue the pissing contest by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Cue the pissing contest by fremsley471 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This European is always astonished how Alcock and Brown's achievement of 1919 is so overshadowed by Lindbergh's 1927 flight. Perhaps that's one of the sources of resentment that lead to 'pissing contests'?

    2. Re:Cue the pissing contest by nschubach · · Score: 3, Funny

      We get tired of the competition between Ohio and North Carolina for the origin vs. actually flying the first plane so we have to look elsewhere to pick fights.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    3. Re:Cue the pissing contest by heck · · Score: 3, Interesting
      This European is always astonished how Alcock and Brown's achievement of 1919 is so overshadowed by Lindbergh's 1927 flight. Perhaps that's one of the sources of resentment that lead to 'pissing contests'?

      Because Lindbergh was the first to do it solo

      And Alcock and Brown weren't the first to make the flight over the Atlantic, although they were the first to do a non-stop. The crew of the NC-4 did it first (but they used more than one aircraft) Alcock and Brown did have balls - climbing out on the wings to chip off the ice as they flew.

    4. Re:Cue the pissing contest by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Which is exactly why we should end this "first" bullshit in the first place.

      First Post!

    5. Re:Cue the pissing contest by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Interesting

      well... can they take off on their own given enough distance? They are only chucked off because the air craft carrier is not long enough for them to achieve the speed they need, they can take off fine from an airstrip, so they are airplanes that don't require catapults... now, put wright brothers "the flyer" on a airstrip with no wind and tell it to take off, it won't happen.

      Why does it matter? Since when does the definition of airplane include the mandatory condition that it be able to take off under its own power? You said it yourself -- they are airplanes that don't require catapults. That is not synonymous with "airplane".

      If an F-14 had all the capabilities it has in reality once in the air, but required a catapult, would you say it's not an airplane?

      Large military cargo airplanes, the kind that transport tanks, require rocket boosters to actually take off when fully loaded. Are they not airplanes? Or only when empty?

      Is Spaceship One not a rocket plane because it is launched from the White Knight carrier?

      Before complaining, use some common sense, those fighters launched with catapults from aircraft carriers are full aircrafts that don't require that gizmo. The flyer is just a glider.

      Uh... Common Sense says that a glider is something that does not fly under its own power. The definition (common sense and otherwise) of "gliding" is "unpowered flight". The Wright Flyer, once airborne, flew under its own power. Ergo it is obviously not a glider.

      It was an airplane that required assistance to take off. It was an airplane with a significant technological limitation. That does not mean it was not an airplane.

      americans think they need to invent everything... I feel sad for them.

      Maybe, but that doesn't excuse you trying to undo a legitimate case with this terrible logic. Americans did invent some things, trying to prove that was never the case is equally sad.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    6. Re:Cue the pissing contest by jc42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You do realize that the Wright Brothers' plane was not the first airplane invented, right? ... The Wright Brothers' plane was the first to master turning. Only an idiot would claim the WB invented the first airplane; ...

      Actually, arguments like this are really just an artifact of the common desire to reduce everything to a bumper-sticker-like slogan. The reality is, as usual, that "the airplane" wasn't invented out of nothing by some single person or team. The real story is more interesting. Powered flight was the result of a century or so of development, in which a large number of people scattered around the globe (but mostly in North America and Europe ;-) figured out parts of the puzzle, learned from each other, built things that did something slightly better than before, etc. Finally, in the early decades of the 20th century, they managed to build flying things that were actually practical transport tools.

      But any decent history of flight will list a lot of people and their achievements. The Wright brothers' achievement is yet another case of "standing on the shoulders of giants". Any claim that "the airplane" was invented by one person/team at one place is utterly bogus.

      Of course, one of the first things to be transported by air in quantity were bombs, as we might expect from briefly skimming the history of human technology.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  3. The Independent is a little dishonest here by Suki+I · · Score: 5, Informative
    A few paragraphs down in TFA:

    Mawson had hoped to stage the first flight over the Antarctic ice cap, but the plane crashed on the Australian mainland before he set sail. No one was hurt, but with the wings damaged and no time to repair them, the explorer adapted the craft to haul his sledges, adding skis to the undercarriage and a special tail-rudder.

    It was an airplane before being loaded on the boat, then it was just a cool looking tug.

    --
    Home of The Suki Series
  4. press release by Nick+Number · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.
  5. It was made of gold? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.'"
  6. The famous Miskatonic Antarctic Survey found by minginqunt · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hope you're all preparing to welcome our new Shuggoth overlords.

    I suspect I, for one, will.

  7. just be careful... by catbertscousin · · Score: 3, Funny

    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
  8. Never flew on the Antarctic by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  9. I guess we can thank global warming by zorro-z · · Score: 2, Funny

    It does seem as if the melting of Antarctic ice is what revealed the long-lost plane. Global warming, anyone?

    --
    -Z
    1. Re:I guess we can thank global warming by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It was still sitting on the ice when he returned in 1929 and 1931, and in 1975 it was photographed after a big ice melt.

      Abandoned in 1914, it was still visible at least until 1931. Between then and 1975 or so it was covered in ice but after "a big ice melt it", was visible again. And now, it is barely visible as it is covered in ice again.

      Hardly evidence that can be used to support global warming.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  10. Why did nobody find it, in all those years? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Let me guess: It hid in plane site! ^^

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  11. Ahem by argStyopa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since they have found the plane, that then means that the search really wasn't 'fruitless', was it?

    --
    -Styopa