Tag: aeronautics

Umberto Nobile, the Italian airship builder and pilot, came together with the great Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen to reach and cross the North Pole by air for the first time, in the year 1926. Two years later, on a subsequent expedition, Nobile and his men were shipwrecked. This first part of this volume, entitled “The First Crossing of the Arctic Ocean”, covers the successful voyage of the N1 Norge, known as the Amundsen–Ellsworth–Nobile Polar Expedition. The second part, “The Tragedy of the Italia”, is about twice as long.

Having read My Zeppelins, I thought that this would be of similar interest, and also that it might be best to give General Nobile the chance (as it were) to defend himself against some belittling remarks of Dr Eckener’s regarding his skill as an airshipman.

• 2024–02–20 The preface ; the first chapter, The Preliminaries of the Expedition ; and a little bit of the second chapter, On the Eve of the Flight. (Chapters are not numbered.)
• 2024–02–23 Remainder of the second chapter ; beginning of the third chapter, The Flight from Rome to the Svalbard.
• 2024–02–27 Completion of the third chapter, and almost all of the fourth, From King’s Bay to the Pole.
• 2024–03–08 Completion of the fourth chapter, covering the actual first attainment and crossing of the North Pole by air ; and the whole of the fifth chapter, In the Unexplored Zone, describing an incredible feat of piloting under conditions of adverse weather and extreme exhaustion.
• 2024–03–12 Two short chapters, The End of the Flight and Returning Home, and an Appendix, complete Part I. The author attempts to settle once and for all the controversy caused by certain intemperate and ill–informed remarks of Amundsen, who knew much of Polar exploration, but little of airships or their handling.
• 2024–03–15 Origin and Preparation of the Expedition (in which we learn how to spell “caïque”), and the first part of The Flight from Milan to King’s Bay, describing the atrocious weather on the way to Stolp on the Baltic (now Słupsk, Poland), begin Part II.
• 2024–03–19 Completion of The Flight from Milan to King’s Bay ; At King’s Bay ; and The Flight to Severnaya Zemlya.
• 2024–03–29 The Voyage to the Pole ; The Catastrophe ; and the beginning of Adrift on the Pack. I note details related by Nobile which completely negative Eckener’s notion of the cause of the wreck. (For some reason, the aNONradio archiver split this show into two parts, so I had to re-join it.)
• 2024–04–05 After a couple of days when I could not do a show, the remainder of Adrift on the Pack, followed by the entirety of The Courage of Despair. Interrupted near the end by a telephone call.

Im Zeppelin über Länder und Meere (1949), an autobiographical account of the development of intercontinental airship flight by Hugo Eckener, long–time head of the Zeppelin organization, was abridged and translated into English by Douglas Robinson, published 1958. I found to my sorrow that the local library’s copy, which I had checked out many times, had been discarded ― but I managed to buy it, in order to read it to you. As usual, there is a great deal of my chatter intermingled with the actual material.

• 2023–11–07 Introduction, and first part of Chapter I, “The Flight of the ZR III (sic) Los Angeles”
• 2023–11–21 Remainder of Chapter I, and commencement of Chapter II, “The First Flights of the Graf Zeppelin”
• 2023–12–05 Continuation of Chapter II
• 2023–12–12 Conclusion of Chapter II, all of Chapter III, “A Sentimental Journey to Egypt”, and the very beginning of Chapter IV, “The Flight Around the World”
• 2023–12–19 Continuation of Chapter IV
• 2024–01–05 Conclusion of Chapter IV, and beginning of Chapter V, “The South American Service, 1930―37”
• 2024–01–09 Conclusion of Chapter V
  Links to a British Pathé Newsreel series showing a trip to South America aboard the Graf Zeppelin : “Flying Down to Rio” Part 1 (not to be confused with the musical film of the same title) ― Part 2 ― Part 3 ― Part 4
• 2023–01–12 Commencement of Chapter VI, “The Arctic Flight of 1931”, with commentary about, inter alia, Fritjof Nansen’s humanitarian efforts, and Eckener’s undeserved censure on Nobile, and a promise to read the latter’s book My Polar Flights
• 2024–01–16 Conclusion of Chapter VI ; beginning of Chapter VII, “The Victory of the Zeppelin Concept, 1931―37”
• 2024–01–19 Conclusion of Chapter VII ; beginning of Chapter VIII, “The Hindenburg” (plus some chatter about the Japanese SLIM lunar landing mission)
• 2024–01–23 Conclusion of Chapter VIII, and almost all of Chapter IX, “Helium Troubles and a Gloomy Ending”
• 2024–01–26 After a few minutes of dead air (owing to my failure to un–mute the mic), the conclusion of Chapter IX, and with it the main text ; and the first part of the Appendix, “A Note on the Technology and Development of the Zeppelin Airship”, by Dr–Ing Knut Eckener, son of the author
• 2024–02–02 Not quite the whole of the remainder of the Appendix
• 2024–02–06 A short show, just the conclusion of the Appendix, with a promise to start My Polar Flights by Umberto Nobile with a show of its own