Air-tractor sledge

Type Monoplane as a reconnaissance and search and rescue tool, and to assist in publicity, but the aircraft crashed heavily during a test flight in Adelaide, only two months before Mawson's scheduled departure date.

Engineer Frank Bickerton spent most of the 1912 winter working to convert it to a sledge, fashioning brakes from a pair of geological drills and a steering system from the plane's landing gear.

Towing a train of four sledges, the air-tractor accompanied a party led by Bickerton to explore the area to the west of the expedition's base at Cape Denison.

Some time later it was dragged back to Cape Denison, and its frame was left on the ice when the expedition returned home in 1913.

In 2008, a team from the Mawson's Huts Foundation began searching for the remains of the air-tractor sledge; a seat was found in 2009, and fragments of the tail assembly a year later.

Along with Edgeworth David and Alistair Mackay, he had been part of a man-hauled sledging expedition, the first to reach the area of the South Magnetic Pole.

[7] He considered taking a plane to the Antarctic, which could work as a reconnaissance tool, transport cargo, and assist with search and rescue.

engine developing 60 horsepower (45 kW), and had a maximum range of 300 miles (480 km) at a cruising speed of 48 knots (89 km/h; 55 mph).

[12] After Vickers tested the aircraft at Dartford and Brooklands, P&O shipped the plane to Adelaide aboard the steamship Macedonia, at half the usual rate of freight.

[nb 3][14][17] A series of public demonstrations were planned in Australia to assist in fund-raising, the first of which was scheduled for 5 October 1911 at the Cheltenham Racecourse in Adelaide.

That problem resolved, Watkins took Frank Wild, whom Mawson had hired to command a support base during the expedition, on another test flight the morning of the demonstration.

[12] In his official account of the expedition, The Home of the Blizzard, Mawson wrote that the advantages of this "air-tractor sledge" were expected to be "speed, steering control, and comparative safety from crevasses owing to the great length of the runners".

[26] The Aurora reached the Antarctic mainland on 8 January 1912, after a two-week stop on Macquarie Island to establish a wireless relay station and research base.

[nb 4][28] While the Aurora was unloading, a violent whirlwind lifted the 300-pound (140 kg) lid off the air-tractor's crate, throwing it 50 yards (46 m).

The main hut was erected immediately, but the strong winds meant that work on the air-tractor's hangar was delayed until March.

[36] Work on the air-tractor sledge was delayed by the fierce winds, and the first trial took place on 15 November, between the main base and Aladdin's Cave—a depot which had been established on the plateau above Cape Denison.

[40] The air-tractor made slow progress hauling its train of sledges, and about 10 miles (16 km) out from the base its engine began experiencing difficulty.

"[41] The party continued without the air-tractor, man-hauling the sledges to a point 158 miles (254 km) west of Cape Denison, and returned to base on 18 January 1913.

On 8 February, just hours after Aurora left Commonwealth Bay after waiting for three weeks, Mawson staggered alone into base, his colleagues Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis and Xavier Mertz dead.

Mawson wrote to Vickers director Sir Trevor Dawson in November 1916, requesting the company write off the bill as a donation.

A 3-metre deep trench was dug in a promising area, but nothing was found except fragments of seaweed indicating the overlying ice must have melted sometime in the past.

[54] The ice showed signs of having extensively melted in the past, was about 3 metres thick and covering smooth rock which extended Northwards to become the harbour bottom.

In January 2009 the remains of a seat from the air-tractor were found in rocks near the hut, about 200 metres (660 ft) from where the team believes the frame to be buried.

[13][55] On 1 January 2010, a day of unusually low tide, 4 small capping pieces from the end section of the tail were found by the edge of the harbour.