From Pole to Pole by Garth James Cameron

Author:Garth James Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Learning to Fly: Ciampino

February–March 1926

Riiser-Larsen was the only one of the Norwegians qualified to fly an airship, and even he had limited experience of the N1 (soon to be re-named Norge). He had flown in her once and had flown with Nobile in Mr at least once. This was a 1,000 m3 semi-rigid designed by Nobile and said to be the smallest airship of this class ever built. Nobile used it for developing handling techniques to be used on full-sized airships. The expedition would require him to land N1 without a trained ground crew and after a demanding flight of up to 75 hours. He often landed and took off from a nearby lake. He enjoyed flying, and it was great sport as well as serious research.

After a brief course on the theory of lighter-than-air flight provided by Captain Valini, the Norwegians joined with the Italians in flying the N1 on training flights. The first of these flights took place on February 26. They were driven to the airfield at the usual “breakneck” speed, and they arrived to find many journalists, military officers, photographers, and spectators in attendance. On the first flight the airship carried 25 men without a problem because only a small amount of fuel was required for a local flight in fine weather. Early in the flight gauges in the control cabin showed a pressure in the envelope that would have split it open. Of course this meant that an accident, fatal to all on board, was seconds away. It turned out that the instrument was defective, and the pressure was within safe limits. The instruments of this era were faulty often enough to cause problems, and the crew of a non-rigid or semi-rigid airship had to continually monitor the pressure of the lifting gas. If the pressure was too low the airship’s envelope would deform and the airship become uncontrollable. If the pressure was too high the envelope would split open.

This first flight had lasted 8 hrs. 30 min., a short flight for an airship. From then on, weather permitting, there were daily training flights. On one of these flights the nose and its fabric was torn when the airship was driven against the entrance to the hangar when it was being walked out in a cross-wind. It was soon repaired, but confirmed that an airship should not be brought in or out of a hangar when there was a significant wind at an angle to the hangar. An important part of the training was docking at the mast, managing the ship while it was at the mast, and undocking. Using the mast was a new experience, even for the experienced Italian crew members.

N1 was leading edge technology in 1926 and it was complicated. On the North Pole flight 16 men were aboard, and 13 of them were required to fly and navigate Norge. The Norwegians had a relatively short time to learn the necessary skills and establish good working relationships with their Italian counterparts.

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