Vince,

Rick, a retired USAF friend passes his copies of _Air Force_
magazine
on to me when he finishes them; the one he gave me yesterday, the
November 2004 issue, has an article on Byrd and Balchen. I thought it
might present some new evidence, but I found nothing startling in it.
It did say that Byrd and Balchen had become "estranged" and that
Bennett had told Balchen that he and Byrd had not reached the North
Pole.

What is amazing to me is that Byrd and Balchen are buried within
several feet of each other at Arlington National Cemetery. Byrd
attacked Balchen pretty viciously prior to the end of Byrd's life,
apparently because Balchen had gotten publicity for his rescues in
Greenland (including landing a PBY, gear up on the ice cap to pick up
downed flight crew) and in Alaska. Balchen never publicly said
anything negative about Bryd as a person, yet wsa the victim of some
nasty smears by Byrd and then by Byrd's estate, which forced Balchen
to delete the performance data on the Fokker 3m from his autobiograhy
under threat of being suied by Byrd's estate (which had a lot more
money than a retired Colonel could lay his hands on).

Seems to me that the possibility that Byrd never intended to fly to
the Pole, that the whole expedition was a hoax, is just too wild to
have any credibility.

That leaves us with three possibilities:

1. Byrd intended to fly to the pole, but after the oil leak
developed, he aborted the attempt and circled for 15 hours.

2. Byrd intended to fly to the pole, even after the the oil leak, but
made some kind of error in dead reckoning, and failed to reach the
Pole although he thought he had. Perhaps he recognized this at some
point and "adjusted" the data.

3. Byrd reached the Pole.

It seems to me that 2 is much more likely than 1; and 3, although
questionable, cannot be ruled out entirely.

It is virtually impossible to imagine that Byrd, an Annapolis-trained
navigator, would have neglected to calculate, while planning the
flight, an ETA at the Pole and an ETA back at Spitzbergen.

Now, if he *knowingly* turned back before reaching the pole, wouldn't
he have made certain he did not arrive back at Spitzbergen too early?
It would have been pretty dumb not to do that, wouldn't it?

He could have instructed Bennett to throttle back, or to circle.
Consider that Bennett had no navigational gear in the cockpit. How in
the world would he, Bennett, know they had not reached the Pole,
unless Byrd had told him, either (a), explicitly, or (b) by tipping
him off by requesting he circle or otherwise delay their arrival back
at Spitzbergen? There is no way, just by looking out the windshield,
that Bennett could know whether he is is, or is not, over the Pole.

I suspect Byrd turned back too early, possibly because of concern
about the oil leak.

......... there were weather reporting stations in the Arctic

Sorry, Rick, I still remain stubbornly skeptical about wind reports.
It's about 700 miles from Spitzbergen to the Pole, and it's all water
or ice. Rarely if ever would the winds be the same over such a large
area. I doubt very much there was a single weather reporting station
anywhere along that route, or even near it, much less one capable of
measuring winds at altitude.

...and there is a historical record of the location of the highs and
lows,....


Modern weather reporting and forecasting developed during World War I
(which is why the use of the word "front" came about. It got
sophisticated fairly rapidly with the ability to identify low and high
pressure centers by the end of the war, based on widely scattered
reporting stations. The next big bumps in weather technology came
about during the space age. Without having it in front of me, the
university that got involved in this issue had a meteorology professor
publish the information that was available for the area at the time
(remember there were reporting points all around the artic in the
Soviet Union, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Spitsbergen, Norway,
Finland, etc.). While the data isn't perfect by any means, there was
nothing to show that there was enough instability in the area, with a
fast moving front that would cause a strong tailwind for both portions
of the trip, north and south. Had there been, the weather would
probably also not have been VFR. (The weather forecasting was
sophisticated enough to predict whether the weather would be VFR for
the routes used both by Byrd and Amundsen.) I keep thinking the
meteorologist report and speed calculations was included in Montague's
book. He was a reporter who covered a lot of the long
distance/exploration flights in the '20s and '30s and was one who was
suspicious of Byrd's claims.

... both Fokker and Balchen wrote of frustration with Byrd not going when the
weather was reported to be good and then, three weeks after Lindbergh
went, abruptly decided to go when the weather forecast was awful,
making the public comment that "modern airliners must be able to fly
in all kinds of weather".

Now that raises an interesting question in my mind! Do you suppose
Byrd was deliberately waiting for BAD weather, to prove that "modern
airliners" can fly in all kinds of weather?

Doubtful, Byrd's repeated public pronouncements prior to Lindbergh
taking off was that he was waiting for very good weather because
safety was paramount. He kept saying that for a while after Lindbergh
made it, but then made the "modern airliners" comment and launched
when the forecasts were awful. No one writing about the flight has
ever provided a theory for Byrd's behavior in delaying departure for
so long and then abruptly going when he did. Interetingly, Byrd had
had a hill built of dirt so the Fokker could start its takeoff roll
with an assist. The tailskid was tied with a rope to allow Acosta
(pilot flying for takeoff) to get full power before the airplane
moved. The rope broke at about half throttle, yet Acosta managed to
recover from the surprise and make a masterful takeoff of a horribly
overloaded airplane.

There is a web site on Byrd that gives the names of those who served
with him in Antarctica (I found it on google by typing in: Byrd
Balchen "South Pole"

After several ties, I've been unable to get that site. Could you
possibly send the URL?

I've been looking again and haven't found it yet. I did find:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020594/fullcredits that might be of
assistance. I'll keep looking and if I can locate that site again,
I'll post it.

Ah, ha! Just found the one I wanted, from Congressional Gold Medal
recipients, it's the one I referenced:
http://www.congressionalgoldmedal.com/RichardEByrd.htm

Hope that helps.


All the best,
Rick