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Fly out of Manhattan with the team (large file - don't click play button, video starts automatically when fully loaded) |
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Come fly with us
18:08 p.m. EDT Oct 23, 2003
It was a chilly Manhattan morning on the 22nd floor of the Reuters building on Times Square. The neon lights flashed through the grey air as Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and a male spokesman for the WWF attended a press conference for a transpolar helicopter expedition. In the back of the room, we chatted away with the hubbie of the female pilot. We discussed what brand is best suited to powder his feet.
Many people ask us why we have placed ExplorersWeb headquarters on Manhattan:
"What do they know about adventure?"
Well, New York is the Everest of cities. So what if it's crowded. So what if rats run the streets between piles of garbage. It's still the coolest city on earth. New York represents the pioneer spirit. ExplorersWeb is the pioneer's checkpoint. And at some point, all adventurers come here. Often enough, they even leave on expeditions from here. Only a few months ago we waived goodbye to Teddy as he rowed off from the downtown Financial District with the Statue of Liberty in the distance. Today, we watched Jennifer and Colin as they flew off with the same lady of freedom beneath them. It's all about keeping the dream alive.
Jennifer and Colin's dream is to fly their chopper around the world including the poles. They will fly over the Amazon's and our Amazon Queen Captain. They will fly across Antarctica and her seven suns. Jennifer will wave to her husband down there, as he pulls his sled with Pen Hadow on their upcoming unsupported South Pole expedition. They will fly over Jim Shekdar as he rows away around Cape Horn. And then they will zoom in on Ben Saunders, Wave Vidmar and a few other Arctic pioneers scheduled for the North Pole next year. Jennifer and Colin are off for an amazing journey. ExplorersWeb will provide coordinates for the world expeditions out there and they will meet up with them. They will experience all of our world wonders from the air. They will fly into horizons of sundogs, halos and diamond dust.
It will be awesome - and tough. They will hold their breath across the dreaded Drake passage - if anything happens to the chopper there they'll have nowhere to go.
Antarctica has the strongest winds on the planet. High coastal winds (Katabatic winds, induced by gravity and rushed down from the polar plateau) blow up to 200mph (320km/h). Whiteout will make any landing a challenge. A skier can't see a sastrugi 3 feet away. Temperatures drop to -40C close to the South Pole, the cold increasing further with the climb to altitude. Choppers don't like altitude, as any veteran on Everest will tell you.
The Arctic will be even colder. The coldest temperature measured in the Arctic is -68C and the chopper is rated to -40C. They will fly around the "Black skies" or “water sky” - the vertical black shadows in the sky reflecting leads of open water. They will be disoriented by "Fata Morgana" or Arctic mirages caused by reflections of water and ice, creating illusions of solid, well-defined features where there are none. The helicopter doesn't go too high and closer to the North pole there will be fog - dense thermal vapor rising from the black, cold ocean.
If they make it, it will be a first. But more than that, this flight is a tribute to this planet and its people. Between the polar areas they will fly over dazzling Caribbean Islands, dense rain forest jungles and majestic South American mountains. Colin is 54 and Jennifer is 62. She started flying only 10 years ago. Think about that. It's a wonderful world out there and there is still time. With Jennifer and Colin, we'll get to see it all from an eagles eye perspective in the next six months.
Let the great adventure begin!
Jennifer Murray and Colin Bodhill plan to fly a helicopter from New York, down the East Coast of the Americas to the South Pole and then up the West Coast of the Americas, to the North Pole and back to New York – with some stops in between of course. The duo hope to land on the South Pole, December 17th, the 100th anniversary of Wilbur and Orville’s first manned, powered, flight.
The expedition will also be visiting numerous WWF projects along the way to aid in their conservation efforts. The World Wildlife Federation is a worldwide organization that is committed to saving endangered species and the wild places of our earth. To help raise money for the WWF, the expedition is also selling space on a flag that will be flown on the North and South Poles - for a nominal fee you can have your name or a short statement on the flag.
Jennifer and Colin hold several world records in aviation. In 1997 Jennifer became the first woman to pilot a helicopter around the world, and then in 2000 became the first woman to do it solo. Colin set the London to Sydney speed record in a Microlight in 1998. In 2000 he became the first person to fly solo around the world in a Microlight. He also set the World Speed Record in a Helicopter in 2001.
Images and video by ExplorersWeb.
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