The Explorers' Club, № MCLIV

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars
11-14 May 1926: Conqueror of the South Pole Roald Amundsen, airship designer & pilot Umberto Nobile, explorer & benefactor Lincoln Ellsworth, & a crew of twelve flew the semi-rigid dirigible Norge over the North Pole from Spitsbergen, Svalbard to Teller, Alaska; the Norge originally aimed for Nome, but diverted to Teller due to weather; she was damaged during the landing & never flew again.

Commentary: There are legitimate disputes about the claims of expeditions led by Frederick Cook (1908) & Robert Peary (1909) to have reached the North Pole by foot & sledge, & less credible disputes about Richard Byrd's & Floyd Bennett's North Pole flight just days earlier (9 May 1926), but there is no dispute about the Amundsen-Ellsworth Transpolar Flight having overflown the North Pole.

The Wayback Machine Tour of Amundsen & the Arctic
"The Explorer's Club," № CXXXIX: The Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight (2009)
"The Explorer's Club," № MLXXXIX: "Farthest North" by Flying Boats (2025)

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club Special: May 1916

Operation AXIOM: The World War
May 1916 saw the aerial war over the Western Front take on a more modern shape, as specialist fighter squadrons were formed & new types of aeroplanes were introduced; the French & the British secretly sign the Sykes-Piot Agreement to partitian the Middle East after the defeat of the Ottomans, seemingly contrary to the British inducements that elicited the Arab Revolt; & the British & the Germans fight the largest discrete naval action of the war.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: May 1916
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCVI: The "Fokker Scourge" Ended (March-December 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCVII: The Sykes-Picot Agreement (16 May 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCVIII: The Battle of Jutland, Part I (17-31 May 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCIX: The Battle of Jutland, Part II (31 May-1 June 1916)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № MCLIII

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars
9 May 1926: Lieutenant Richard E. Byrd & Chief Aviation Pilot Floyd Bennett of the U.S. Navy were the first to overfly the North Pole in the Fokker F.VII Trimotor Josephine Ford, a flight of 15:57:00 from & back to Spitsbergen, Svalbard; Byrd & Bennett were awarded the Tiffany Cross Medal of Honor & both were promoted in naval rank; the Josephine Ford was flown in a cross-country celebration tour.

Commentary: The Josephine Ford remains on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan down to the present day.

The Wayback Machine Tour of Byrd & the Arctic
"The Explorer's Club," № CXXXVIII: The Byrd Arctic Expedition (2009)

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № MCXXXVII

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of the Concorde
21 January 1976: The Concorde*, the supersonic airliner jointly developed by the United Kingdom & France, began scheduled flights, with a British Airways flight from London to Bahrain & an Air France flight from Paris to Dakar to Rio de Janeiro; service from London & Paris to Washington, D.C. began in May; service to New York City would not begin until November 1977, due to local opposition.

Commentary: *British usage was to call the aeroplane Concorde, without the definite article. French usage was the call the aeroplane le Concorde, with the definite article. I have never liked the British usage; so, I call the aeroplane the Concorde, in English but with the definite article.

Bonus! Song o' the Day: The Concorde
They Might Be Giants featuring Marty Beller, "Speed and Velocity" from Here Comes Science (Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.

Bonus! Song o' the Wright Flyer

Beirut, "The Flying Club Cup" from The Flying Club Cup Mike Papa Whiskey)

Operation AXIOM
One hundred twenty-two years ago to the day, 17 December 1903, Wilbur & Orville Wright made the first four controlled, powered flights in the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The first flight, by Orville, covered a total distance of one hundred twenty feet, less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet; the fourth flight, by Wilbur, covered eight hundred fifty-two feet, lasting nearly a minute. The Wright Flyer was damaged shortly after the fourth flight when overturned by a gust of wind, & would never fly again. The Wright brothers returned with the Wright Flyer II in 1904 & the much improved Wright Flyer III in 1905.

The Wright brothers made the first aeroplane flights, 17 December 1903, one hundred twenty-two years ago today.

The Explorers' Club Special: August 1915

Operation AXIOM: The World War
August 1915 saw the "Fokker Scourge," a period of German advantage in aerial combat that began in July, escalate; continued & very bloody futility in the Gallipoli Campaign; & Russia's Great Retreat, a well-executed strategic withdrawal that was the beginning of the end of the Russian Empire.

Commentary: August 2015 was bonkers: We published ten episodes of "The Explorers' Club," nine of them highlighting the Great War. The rules of "The Explorers' Club" require three days between episodes & we kept up that frenetic pace for pretty much the whole month. One of those ten episodes filled in important events we'd missed earlier in 2015. Please revisit the "Explorers' Club Specials" for April 1915, May-June 1915, & July 1915, which have been updated.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: August 1915
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXLVIII: The Fokker Scourge, Part I: The synchronization gear
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXLIX: The Gallipoli Campaign, Part IV: The August Offensive (6-21 August 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDL: The Gallipoli Campaign, Part V: Henry Moseley (10 August 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLI: The Fokker Scourge, Part II: The introduction of fighter aeroplanes
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLIII: The Sinking of the S.S. Arabic by the S.M. U-24 (19 August 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLIV: The Gallipoli Campaign, Part VI: The Battles of Scimitar Hill & Hill 60 (21-29 August 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLVI: The Great Retreat, Part III: The Siege of Novogeorgievsk (10-20 August 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLV: The Great Retreat, Part II: Tsar Nicholas II assumes direct command (21 August 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLXII: The Fokker Scourge, Part III: Adolphe Pégoud (31 August 1915)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club Special: July 1915

Operation AXIOM: The World War
July 1915 saw the first victory in aerial combat, a dozen years after the Wright Brothers invented the aeroplane. In East Africa, a German ship's guns were removed & repurposed as field artillery.

Commentary: In July 2015, "The Explorers' Club" was still recovering from a rough spring. We'd be backon track by August.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: July 1915
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXLV: The first victory in air-to-air combat (1 July 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXLVI: The Battle of the Rufiji Delta (October 1914-11 July 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLIX: The Endless Battles of the Isonzo, Part I: The First & Second Battles of the Isonzo (23 June-3 August 1915)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № MLXXXIX

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars
21 May-16 June 1925: An expedition of Roald Amundson, Lincoln Ellsworth, & four others attemped a North Polar flight in two Dornier Do J Wal flying boats, N24 & N25, reaching an aerial "Farthest North" of 87º 44'; the N24 was damaged & they spent over three weeks preparing an ice runway for the N25; given up for dead by the world, all six men squeezed into the N25 & flew to the safety of Spitsbergen.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № MLXXX

The Grumman X-29: An experimental aircraft with forward-swept wings that flew test flights from 1984-1991; a joint program of N.A.S.A., the U.S. Air Force, & D.A.R.P.A., the X-29 was composed of parts from the F-5 Freedom Fighter & the F-16 Fighting Falcon, with carbon-fiber wings; the design was inherently dynamically unstable, but the expected exceptional agility was not observed in testing.

Commentary: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (D.A.R.P.A.) is the U.S. Department of Defense's research & development agency; yes, the D.O.D. has a "mad science" division.

Today, the two X-29s are on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Ohio & N.A.S.A.'s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California. I had a toy of the X-29 when I was a boy, but I don't know if it's still somewhere in my parents house or if at some point it was thrown away.

The Explorers' Club, № MLXXVI

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars
3 March 1925: The Helium of Act of 1925 was signed into law by President Coolidge, forbidding the export of helium, on which the United States had nearly a monopoly; 1920 legislation had already reserved all helium in natural gas on federal lands to federal use; foreign airships designed for helium gas thus had to use flammable hydrogen gas for lift, contributing to the 1937 Hindenburg diasaster.

Lest we forget.

Bonus! Song o' the Wright Flyer

Foo Fighters, "Learn to Fly" from There Is Nothing Left to Lose Mike Papa Whiskey)

Operation AXIOM
One hundred twenty-one years ago to the day, 17 December 1903, Wilbur & Orville Wright made the first four controlled, powered flights in the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The first flight, by Orville, covered a total distance of one hundred twenty feet, less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet; the fourth flight, by Wilbur, covered eight hundred fifty-two feet, lasting nearly a minute. The Wright Flyer was damaged shortly after the fourth flight when overturned by a gust of wind, & would never fly again. The Wright brothers returned with the Wright Flyer II in 1904 & the much improved Wright Flyer III in 1905.

The Wright brothers made the first aeroplane flights, 17 December 1903, one hundred twenty-one years ago today.

The Explorers' Club, № MLXII

Operation AXIOM
1 December 1974: In the morning, Trans World Airlines Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashed into Mount Weather, Virginia, claiming all ninety-two souls aboard (seven crew, eighty-five passengers); in the evening, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, also a Boeing 727, crashed in Haverstraw, New York, claiming all three souls aboard (crew); the disasters were caused by pilot & Air Traffic Control error.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № MLI

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars
12-15 October 1924: The U.S.S. Los Angeles (ZR-3) flew from Germany to the United States & was delivered to the U.S. Navy; she was build by Luftschifbau Zeppelin as war reparations (works № LZ 126), the replacement for a wartime dirigible sabotaged in 1919; the Los Angeles was the only one of the Navy's rigid airships that did not meet a disastrous end, serving until broken up for scrap in 1939.

Commentary: The Los Angeles was caught in a gust of wind on 25 August 1927, resulting in the near vertical orientation seen above. There were no injuries & damage was minimal; flight operations resumed the next day.

Elsewhere in October 1924, the American-build U.S.S. Shenandoah (ZR-1) flew from New Jersey to California to Washington state, completing the first airship flight across North America.

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № MXLIX

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars
6 April-28 September 1924: Two Douglas World Cruiser aeroplanes of the U.S. Army Air Service, the Chicago & the New Orleans, completed the first aerial circumnavigation of Earth, without radios or avionics; the planes switched between wheels & floats depending on the route; the Seattle crashed on the Alaska Peninsula & the Boston sank under tow in the North Atlantic Ocean; all crew survived.

Commentary: Expedition commander Lieutenant Lowell Smith & Lt. Leslie Arnold (the Chicago) & Lt. Erik Nelson & Lt. John Harding Jr. (the New Orleans) completed the circumnavigation; Lt. Leigh Wade & Staff Sergeant Henry Ogden (the Boston) rejoined the expedition in Nova Scotia in a replacement aeroplane (the Boston II); original expedition commander Major Frederick Martin & S.Sgt. Alva Harvey (the Seattle) were ten days in the Alaskan wilderness before reaching civilization.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № MXXXVII

Operation AXIOM: The 10th Anniversary of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
17 July 2014: Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam, The Netherlands to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was shot down by Russian-controlled terrorists operating in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, using a Buk surface-to-air missile that came from Russia & the launcher of which returned to Russia; two hundred ninety-eight souls were lost; three Russian agents were convicted in absentia.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № DCCCLIV

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305
24 November 1971: An unidentified air pirate calling himself "Dan Cooper" hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 with a bomb threat; Cooper received his demanded ransom of $200,000, then escaped by parachuting from the Boeing 727's aft airstair over southern Washington; $5,880 of the ransom was recovered in 1980, but neither Cooper nor the rest of the money has ever been located.

Semper exploro.

Lies, Damned Lies, & the News
The air pirate who hijacked Flight 305 used the alias "Dan Cooper." Indefensibly shoddy journalism resulted in the incorrect alias "D. B. Cooper" receiving widespread circulation & thus widespread currency. One minor example of how the public trust has been systematically betrayed by our supposed betters in the Fourth Estate for longer than I've been alive. I'm not cynical about journalists & journalism, I've simply been paying attention.