Arctic 1920s
With Ben Eielson, in 1927, Wilkins embarked on a mission to traverse the North Pole by air - from Canada to Norway. It took three attempts over a couple of years in three different planes. This is vision taken from 'Polar Exploration by Land Sea & Air', a film believed he used for speeches and the like. This vision covers his first arrival in Point Barrow, Alaska, much to the delight of the locals.
One of the most popular images in the Wilkins collection. On the left is American flying icon, Amelia Earhart in front of the Lockheed hangar. Both Wilkins and Earhart used early Lockheed planes for their pioneering flights.
By the late 1920s, there was a race on to reach the North Pole and Wilkins wanted in but with a difference; he didn’t want to reach the Pole but rather traverse it, from Point Barrow Alaska to Spitsbergen Norway.
After completion of the momentous flight over the North Pole, the American Geographical Society awarded Wilkins its highest honour, the first time it had done so for 40 years.
The Lockheed Vega – Sir Hubert’s Bird of Paradise - on take-off, complete with skis fitted by Wilkins for snow and ice landings.
For this he teamed up with an Alaskan flying legend, Ben Eielson, and, together, after destroying a couple of planes and losing the support of sponsors, they did it. That flight is one of the greatest aeronautical feats of all time, perhaps the last great flight before expeditions into space and to the moon 30 years and more later.
On a day of disaster, both of the planes financed by the car barons of Detroit for the North Pole flight came down and were destroyed within 24 hours. Wilkins and Eielson dusted themselves off and on they went a few weeks later.
