TRANS-ARCTIC AVIATION—PLISCHKE 291 
off from such surfaces, especially because high speeds are now neces- 
sary. 
Stefansson seems to be somewhat more optimistic concerning nat- 
ural Arctic landing facilities. He claims that the Arctic and the 
northern third of the Temperate Zone excel the rest of the world in 
number and quality of emergency landing fields, noting that there 
are millions of lakes which provide suitable spots for landing with 
pontoons or skis. These many landing fields, he continues, have given 
polar flying a greater safety percentage than exists in other zones, 
even in the Tropics. On the Arctic pack ice there are few sections 
where good landing fields are more than 20 miles apart, there gener- 
ally being a choice of two or more within the gliding range of a plane 
if its motors stop at an altitude of a mile or more. In support of this 
contention, Stefansson asserts that during a single decade at least 54 
such emergency descents were made in every sort of weather, outstand- 
ing among which was the third descent of George H. Wilkins, under- 
taken at night in a blizzard when he alighted upon the ice pack 100 
miles off the northern tip of Alaska. No life was lost in any of these 
descents, while the distance covered amounted to over 90,000 miles. 
Again, no lives were sacrificed in the search for the Russian flyer Lev- 
anevsky in 1937, in which some 50,000 miles were flown. 
Contrary points of view are held concerning the suitability of the 
ice cap of Greenland as a polar landing field. One group of writers 
contends that, despite a prolonged search undertaken by the Danish 
Government, there is no known natural landing field in all Greenland. 
The ice cap is described as an undulating plain, difficult of access be- 
cause it is girdled by a ring of mountains which must be flown over 
and which usually constitute one of the greatest hazards of aviation 
everywhere. In addition, there are steep, jagged fissures into which 
ice pours through the mountains as glaciers. Unless the plane is espe- 
cially equipped for a perilous overland journey, an emergency landing 
is apt to leave the hapless party exposed to the bitter elements on the 
ice cap. Recently two daring aerial rescues of 15 stranded American 
Army flyers were disclosed in the press, but both accounts leave no 
doubt whatever as to the dangers encountered. 
The opposite point of view argues that Greenland’s ice cap is the 
world’s largest and finest natural landing field. It is said to form a 
continuous and nearly perfect emergency airdrome 1,500 miles long 
and up to 600 miles wide. Local gales along its coasts probably can be 
offset by selecting nonwindy flying lanes. The use of the southern 
part of the island as a route by which military planes are ferried across 
the Atlantic seems to justify this opinion, at least in part. 
The majority of these hazards attending polar flying may rapidly 
be eliminated through the perfection of technological and other im- 
