Norge (airship)

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Airship Norge

The Norge , originally N1 , was a semi-rigid airship that was built in 1923/24 under the airship pioneer Umberto Nobile at the Italian state shipyard Stabilimento di Costruzioni Aeronautiche (SCA). It became famous for its journey to explore the North Pole region between Europe and America in 1926 - it reached the North Pole on May 12, 1926.

1924/25

The maiden voyage took place in March 1924. This was followed by many more trips. Including a trip together with the Zeppelin LZ 120 , which was called Esperia in Italy , at the end of May 1925 to Barcelona and the French airport Cuers-Pierrefeu , where a celebration was held in honor of those who died in the Dixmude disaster (formerly LZ 114 ).

North Pole Expedition

After the failure of his flying boat expedition, the polar explorer Roald Amundsen approached Nobile in 1925 with the wish to fly over the North Pole in an airship in the direction of Alaska in order to explore the hitherto unknown area. Since Amundsen did not want to wait for another airship under construction to be completed, Nobile decided to convert the N1 . The Norwegian Aero Club, the main financier of the expedition alongside the Italian state and the American Lincoln Ellsworth , bought it from the Italian government.

A first flight test of the ship was carried out in February 1926. The official handover did not take place until March 29, 1926 in Ciampino . The ship was renamed Norge , the Norwegian word for Norway.

The anchor mast in Vadsø ...
... and the one in Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard

The start of the expedition was originally planned for April 3, but a storm left many disappointed guests who wanted to attend the departure, including Mussolini. In the end, they started a week late. The first stopover on the transfer route was the airship hangar in Pulham, Great Britain, where a two-day stop was made; Then it went via Oslo, first to an airfield near Leningrad , where the Norge arrived on April 15 after around 1,200 km at Gaschina Airport. The ship was supposed to wait there until the base on Svalbard was ready and the weather was favorable for this stage. Amundsen and Ellsworth had already driven ahead to prepare for the airship's arrival on Svalbard. After many delays, the journey continued to Vadsø and from there to Ny-Ålesund on Spitsbergen, where the Norge arrived on May 7th.

When the Norge started its actual voyage across the North Pole to Alaska on May 11, the 16-strong crew, including Nobile, Amundsen and Ellsworth, had to assume that the American Richard Byrd had already succeeded two days earlier Fly over North Pole. His claim to have reached and orbited the North Pole with his co-pilot Floyd Bennett before landing again on Spitsbergen, however, could never be proven; Therefore, May 12, 1926, on which the Norge reached the North Pole after 16 hours and 40 minutes of travel, is the first unequivocally certain date. The Norge successfully continued its voyage and landed almost 70 hours after take-off on Svalbard, despite bad weather, which among other things made navigation difficult, without a ground crew at Teller near Nome / Alaska. Immediately after putting it on, the cover was opened to allow the gas to escape. The ship was later dismantled there.

Upon his return, Nobile was named general for the exceptional performance in Italy.

Expedition participant

Surname task
Norwegian group
Roald Amundsen Expedition leader
Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen First navigational officer
Emil Horgen Second navigational officer
Birger Gottwaldt Head of the radio station
Oscar wisting Helmsman
Frithjof Storm-Johnsen Radio operator
Oskar Omdal machinist
Fredrik Ramm journalist
Italian group
Umberto Nobile Captain of the airship
Natale Cecioni Senior Technician
Ettore Arduino machinist
Renato Alessandrini Riggers
Attilio Caratti machinist
Vincenzo Pomella machinist
Nationals of other nations
Finn Malmgren Swedish meteorologist and oceanographer
Lincoln Ellsworth US Chief Financer and Deputy Expedition Leader

technology

  • Length: 106 m
  • 19.5 m diameter
  • Volume: about 18,500 to 19,000 cubic meters
  • Dead weight: 12,490 kg
  • Payload: 8,600 kg
  • Carrying gas : hydrogen
  • Cover material: four-ply cotton with rubber coating on the inside and aluminum paint on the outside
  • Drive: 3 Maybach motors with 180 kW (245 hp) each
  • Top speed: 85 km / h

The ship covered a total of around 12,500 km in 171 hours in the air, 5,300 of which over the polar sea .

See also

literature

  • Willy Meyer: The fight for Nobile. Attempt to objectively portray and evaluate the achievements of the Italian airship , Radetzki, Berlin 1931
  • Jürgen K. Bock, Berthold Knauer: Lighter than air. Transport and carrier systems . Verlag Frankenschwelle, Hildburghausen 2003, ISBN 3-86180-139-6 .

Web links

Commons : Norge (airship)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files