The 1920s Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) - the man who had beaten Captain Scott to the South Pole in 1911 - launched a bid to become first to fly over the North Pole. After Amundsen's first attempt failed in 1925, he found himself in a race with US Navy Commander Richard E. Byrd (1888-1957), who had the same ambition.

Byrd signed up two pilots (a mail pilot called Charles Lindbergh applied for the job but was too late) and took a prototype trimotor Fokker to King's Bay, Spitzbergen, Norway. In May 1926, Amundsen also arrived, this time in an Italian airship, the Norge, piloted by Umberto Nobile.

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First to the pole

After unsuccessful earlier attempts to fly to the North Pole, Amundsen and his American friend Lincoln Ellsworth, with two Norwegian pilots and two mechanics, took off from Kings Bay, Spitzbergen, in the late afternoon of 21 May, 1925 in two twin-engine, open-cockpit Dornier Wal flying-boats numbered N.24 and N.25. All went well for seven hours, until one of N.25's engines failed.

This aircraft made a safe landing, but N. 24 was holed by ice while making its own landing three miles away. On checking their positions, the two explorers discovered that they had come tantalizingly close to the required latitude 87° 44' N but that drift, which they were not equipped to measure accurately, had carried them I° 20' W of their goal, leaving them still 136 miles from the Pole.

They survived an incredible 16 days of hardship on the ice before, with its faulty engine repaired and all six men crowded on board, N.25 was able to lumber off the ice and fly them back to Spitzbergen.

Photo of happy Roald Amundsen	Umberto Nobile

Almost immediately, Amundsen and Ellsworth began to plan another attempt, this time by airship, and approached the Italian government to request use of the 670,980 cubic foot semi-rigid N. 1 built by Colonel Umberto Nobile.

This arrangement was approved by Mussolini on two conditions: that Nobile was appointed as airship commander, with five other Italians forming part of the crew, and that Italy would repurchase the N. l if it survived the expedition in good condition. After being stripped. re-equipped and renamed Norge, the N. l arrived in Spitzbergen on 7 May 1926, having had a four-week, 5,000-mile roundabout trip.

 

By that time, however, there was a serious rival already on the scene in the form of Lieutenant Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd of the US Navy, who was ready with his own attempt to reach the North Pole by airplane.

Amundsen's efforts, although he was denied his cherished 'first' for a second time, did not go un rewarded. The Norge took off two days after Josephine Ford, remaining airborne (in a rather more eventful flight) for nearly three and a half days during which it passed over the Pole, continuing its journey to land at Teller, Alaska, on 14 May. Amundsen thereby achieved the first flight to traverse the Arctic completely.

He and his helmsman, Oskar Wisting, also gained the well-deserved distinction of becoming the first men in history to visit both Poles. Despite some envelope damage, caused by lumps of ice flying off the propellers, the airship was largely unscathed, enabling Amundsen to claim the $46,000 'repurchase' price for returning it safely to Italian ownership.

Like Byrd's flight, that of the Norge was a remarkable feat of navigation and airmanship, but its achievement was sadly marred by some over-publicized personal differences between Amundsen and Nobile after the event. These were never settled directly. But when Nobile in his new airship Italia crashed in the Arctic two years later, Amundsen and his Norwegian pilot of 1925, Lief Dietrichson, volunteered to join the seven-nation aerial search for them.

Tragically, although Nobile and seven of the Italia's 15-man crew were rescued, the only casualties among the would-be rescuers were Amundsen, Dietrichson and their four-man crew, whose aircraft crashed en route to Spitzbergen without even reaching the search area.

 

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By 7 May 1926, the airship had arrived at King's Bay in Spitzbergen, ready for a planned flight across the North Pole and southwards to Nome in Alaska. Four days later, it took off and reached the Pole in 17 hours, where the crew dropped Norwegian, Italian, and American flags onto the ice. The Norge then set the course for Alaska, but ran into dense fog, while ice condensed on the structure and the envelope, and the compasses were useless because of the closeness of the magnetic Pole.

In the end, the airship made it as far as a frozen lake 56 miles north of Nome, when Amundsen insisted on a landing. They managed a smooth touchdown, and pulled the gas-release cords to deflate the airship. They had very nearly reached their destination, after a flight of 3,400 miles, but the ensuing publicity caused sharp differences of opinion between Nobile and Amundsen, who each accused the other of incompetence.

This dispute convinced Nobile, now promoted to general, that he should prove his point by mounting a second expedition, under entirely Italian control. He adapted a new airship, of similar size to the Norge, which was to be named Italia, and planned a series of flights from Spitzbergen to the nearby Arctic coasts and on to the Pole. The expedition landed at their King's Bay base in May of 1928, two years after the Norge's flight.

Back to the Pole The Polar flight began at on 23 May, with the Italia flying northwest to pick up the Greenland coast, cruising on two of its three engines. Helped by a brisk tailwind, it reached the Pole at 12.20 am on 24 May. Once again, flags were dropped, including the standard of the City of Milan, which had helped back the expedition, a small medallion of the Virgin Mary, and a wooden cross given to Nobile by Pope Pius XI before the expedition left Italy for the Arctic.

After an hour over the Pole the weather began to worsen, so it was decided to turn back for King's Bay. Unfortunately, the tailwind was now against them, and ice was building up on the outer skin of the airship. With the airship becoming heavier, and the wind becoming ferocious, the signs were set for disaster. At 6 am on 25 May, and again at 10, distress signals were received from the Italia, followed by total silence.

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Deadly rivalry:

In spite of their successful collaboration in the flight of the Norge over the Arctic, Colonel (later General) Umberto Nobile and the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became enemies. Nobile complained that Amundsen had contributed nothing to the trip, and its success had been due entirely to his airship, and his skill at commanding it. Amundsen countered by accusing Nobile of inexperience with Arctic conditions, and with dangerous incompetence.

Nevertheless, when Nobile's Italia crashed on the ice, Amundsen was quick to offer his help. With his fellow Norwegian Lief Dietrichsen, he joined the three-man crew of a French Latdcobre flying boat. They took off to join the air search, and were never seen again. A man who had survived years of exploration in the toughest of Polar conditions had died in going to the rescue of his sharpest critic and deadliest rival.

This is the Italia gondola

Half an hour after the sending of the second signal, the sinking airship struck the ice so violently that one of the engine cars and the main control gondola were torn off the structure. Freed of their weight, the airship, with seven crew members still aboard, rose into the storm and was never seen again. One mechanic died in the crash, but the other 10 survivors, including Nobile with a broken arm and leg, were forced to shelter in a tent, where they sent out desperate calls for help on an emergency radio transmitter salvaged from the wreck.

By the time rescue reached the camp on 17 June, in the shape of a Swedish biplane fitted with skis, three of the party-two Italian naval officers and an injured scientist named Malmgren-had set off across the ice to find their own salvation. The airplane could carry only one person in addition to its two-man crew, so General Nobile was taken back to their base, to help coordinate the air search being mounted by five different nations.

The Swedish pilot returned to the camp without his observer, to pick up more survivors, but crashed on landing, damaging the skis so badly that a take-off was impossible. This added another to the five explorers still awaiting rescue, though two weeks after the original landing the pilot was picked up when his observer managed to reach the camp in another plane on 6 July.

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Russia to the rescue:

It was now six weeks since the original crash and more than a month since three of the crew had set out across the ice to find help. As the weather worsened, making it impossible for other planes to locate or approach the camp, the situation looked increasingly bleak. Yet, unknown to the small group waiting patiently on the ice, the Russian icebreakers Krassin and Malygin were steaming through the fog toward them.

During one break in the clouds, Krassin had been able to launch its spotter plane, which had detected the two naval officers walking across the ice, and the ship had picked them up. Dr Malmgren had had to be left behind on their journey, close to death, and his body was never found. The very next day, Krassin arrived at the camp, and the five remaining survivors were safe at last. It had been a tragic and disappointing follow-up to the success of the Norge expedition, and the death toll was still rising.

Apart from the four mechanics, the two journalists, and the scientist who had disappeared with the remains of the airship, another mechanic had been killed in the crash and Dr Malmgren had died on the trek across the ice. There was still worse to come. In the search for the survivors, a Russian plane from the icebreaker Malygin vanished with all its crew, as did a French flying boat carrying three Frenchmen and two Norwegians, Lief Dietrichsen and Nobile's arch-rival, Roald Amundsen.

Get a couple big plastic eyes and scare the stuffin's out of the kids after you build the keel.

 

 

If you give up midway through this project, (like I almost did MANY times) your Norge model makes into a hat that impresses the neighbors big time. Helpful also, in getting a seat all to yourself on a crowded bus or train

 

 

Here are some photos of the Norge Model.. The model was suspended by chords that were 'airbrushed' out. The plastic prop discs below were enhanced a little as well.
The Gondola, engine cars, and flags looking up

These are a couple sketches taken from the pages of the model

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Specifications for the Norge N1 Airship

Lifting gas: hydrogen Length: 348 ft Diameter: 85 ft Gas capacity: 19,000 m³ Performance: 71 mph Payload: 20,944 lbs Engines: 3 Maybach total power of 780 Hp

	Boy, this was a real challenge. A very stiff wire runs all the way to the tail and down through the mast into the wooden base. I strengthened each section of the body with a circle of cardboard to keep them circular and stiffer. Regards, Dick