Honorary Chair
Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008
President
Daniel A. Bennett
Honorary President
James Fowler
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Honorary Chair Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008 |
President Daniel A. Bennett |
Honorary President James Fowler |
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EX POST FACTO by Clare Flemming A Matter of Perspective In the short span of a man's lifetime, the airplane has enabled explorers to investigate [unknown or unexplored] regions with less hardship and in a fraction of the time of their earthbound colleagues. Indeed, because of the airplane, man has gone everywhere and in doing so has contributed to a prodigious growth in human knowledge.
Aviation sensu lato ranks among the dozen field-oriented disciplines that unite Explorers Club members. It comes as little surprise, therefore, to learn that the Club claims among its members past and present pilots of airships, balloons, dirigibles, gliders, helicopters, planes, and spacecraft. Reflecting this rich history, the Club's archives contain reports, photographs, moving images, and other records of such notables as Charles A. Lindbergh, first to solo the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis (1921), and Richard E. Byrd and Bernt Balchen, first to fly to the South Pole in a Ford Trimotor (1929). One revealing document from Byrd to the Club secretary states that his "membership in The Explorers Club means more to me than [one] can possibly know". In 1928 Sir Hubert Wilkins and Carl Eielsen flew a Lockheed Vega on the first successful airplane crossing of the Arctic Ocean, from Alaska to Spitsbergen. Hugo Eckner, captain of the doomed dirigible Hindenburg, was an award-winning member of The Explorers Club before World War II. Our vast photographic archives contain a vintage print of a Club-sponsored banquet tendered to the captain and crew of the Hindenburg prior to the dirigible's fiery end in New Jersey in 1937. The very generous Lincoln Ellsworth financially enabled and accompanied several famous flights of the 1920s and 1930s. Among those relevant to the Explorers Club collections is the flight of the Norge, the first airship to fly across the North Pole from Spitsbergen to Alaska. This expedition was co-led by Ellsworth and Roald Amundsen, and captained by Umberto Nobile. We are fortunate to own a strip of silk from the Norge signed by this small but prestigious team. Who can think of aviation history without remembering Amelia Earhart, "Queen of the Air"? Alas, Ms. Earhart, the first woman to solo across the Atlantic (1932), was unable to earn her way into the Club: it simply did not allow women into its ranks at the time, a practice that was not abandoned until 1981. Nevertheless, in 1932, the Club feted her at a black-tie dinner in her honor, here in New York City. Some early members, renowned for firmly terrestrial feats, also enjoyed taking an aeronautical perspective when circumstances permitted. Polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott was the first soul to rise above the Antarctic continent. He did this in 1903 in a tethered hydrogen balloon--a perspective that enabled him to confirm the expanse of the great ice barrier that would be the site of his demise nine years later. When Scott returned to earth, he immediately sent an underling up in the same balloon to take the first aerial photos of Antarctica; this underling was Ernest H. Shackleton. Even Robert E. Peary, leader of the first team to set foot at 90 degrees north (1909), lived long enough to experience a joy ride in an open-cockpit plane before his death in 1920. As the world celebrates a century of powered flight, it is important for Club members to reflect on our institution. The Explorers Club is virtually as old as this remarkable invention which, in the space of only a few decades, has forever altered the way explorers perceive terra firma. Reprinted from The Explorers Journal, Spring 2003.
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