[After my (recent) adventures into Antarctica and South Pole, using our SIM and two wonderful aircraft/scenery add-ons,....naturally, my mind drifted to the other final frontier on our planet...the North Pole. As I continued to explore, I realized, North Pole, is also equally amazing in its own right - besides just being famous as the site of Kris Kringle's (Toy) industries..🙂...!]

Unlike Antarctica/South Pole, there’s no land (underneath) at the North Pole! North Pole is basically (all) a pack of floating, drifting, (intermittently) thinning and thickening sea ice in the middle of the Arctic Ocean - roughly 4 million sq miles of area (same as that of U.S.)! The thickness of ice mass ranges between only (10-15) feet. The fact that, while standing on the North Pole, one is not on any kind of land beneath, must be, indeed, an extremely unnerving sensation! This also automatically rules out (a) Heavy aircraft operations, so, I have to give up the comfort of traveling in the Hercules C-130...🙂...(b) Existence of permanent (human) habitations, so, I also give up the coziness of well-established stations, towns, communities, and supermarkets etc. (of Antarctica). Moreover, from early October to early March, for six months, the North Pole is enveloped in darkness (except for bits of twilight at the horizon - see one in-flight image, below, of it). So, about today, March 4th, is when light is (finally) beginning to return to the North Pole! We'll see what happens when we get there...!

The well-known fact about a compass-based navigation to North Pole is that it won’t necessarily take one due north while traveling to the North Pole. That’s because there’s a difference between the geographic North Pole (also called "true north") and the geomagnetic North Pole, which is what compasses use. The separation between the two North Poles is, now, about 300 miles (with the geomagnetic North Pole moving towards Siberia at record speeds of (25-35) miles per year in recent years).

And, just as for the South Pole, there is no shortage of historic (and heroic) expeditions to the North Pole. For this post and this flight, I've combined the elements of two (remarkable) aerial expeditions.

On the morning of June 20, 1937, in Vancouver, Washington, while people were going about their (normal) daily routines, no one realized the magnitude of the achievement that was about to unfold at the local Pearson Field. Valery Chkalov (sometimes referred to as the "Russian Lindbergh") and his crew, after sixty-three hours and sixteen minutes from the time they left Moscow, and non-stop (5,475) miles in the air, had completed world's first transpolar flight. They safely landed their ANT-25 plane at Pearson Field. (Side Note: ANT-25 was a (Tupolev, not Antonov, as I'd initially thought) long-range experimental aircraft, designed under the special supervision of Andrei Tupolev.) This dangerous and fantastic flight/mission matched the glitz and glamor of Earhart and Lindbergh! Today, near the Pearson Air Museum, stands a Monument, dedicated to Chkalov's (first) transpolar flight. And, in modern times, several Airlines have now pioneered over-the-North-Pole intercontinental flights (under the guidance of (advanced) FMCs, of course, a far cry from Chkalov's rudimentary avionics).

Bits of interesting excerpts from their final communications:

"We've landed. We're on the ground," Chkalov pronounced quietly. "This is America..."
His friends were silent. Baidukov opened the hatch and hot damp air quickly filled the cockpit.
"Sasha, we've landed!" Chkalov shouted to Belyakov, rushing over to the window.
The navigator continued to tidy up, putting away maps, triangles, compasses, and pencils in the briefcase.
"You fellows can do what you like, but I'm climbing out!"

And, as for the 2nd (North Pole) milestone, on 3 May 1952, U.S. Air Force pilots, Joseph O. Fletcher and William Pershing Benedict, along with scientist Albert P. Crary, landed a modified Douglas C-47 Skytrain at the North Pole. Lieutenant Colonel Fletcher climbed out of the plane and walked to the exact geographic North Pole, (arguably) the first person in history to stand on the North Pole (all roads lead South from there!)!

Now, back to my flight (and plane) for this post:

Please see the (first) screenshot of the FSC Route Map of a (fictitious) flightplan from Moscow (UUEE) to Vancouver (CYVR) - actual ORIG/DEST points of Chkalov party's incredible flight. Because of flat representation, here, of the MAP, the route exhibits that (long) straight segment at the top. In RL, Chkalov, would have actually flown, so to speak, over the top of Earth, across to North America. Next, please also note my 5 (custom) waypoints (Fix01->Fix05) at RHS of the MAP, as listed below:

UUEE (Moscow - Sheremetyevo)-> Fix01 (N6534.5/E03701.3) -> Fix02 (N7333.8/E03629.8) -> Fix03 (N8233.4/E03519.1) -> Fix04 (N8548.8/E03336.9) -> Fix05 (N8822.2/E02818.5) ..... -> CYVR (Vancouver)

Fix05, above, actually represents the co-ordinates of the (Russian) Barneo Camp on North Pole, an annually established (temporary) ice station (we recall, there are no permanent stations on North Pole!), with ICAO Code UOBN. UOBN is the terminal point of my subject flight (see the last screenshot). Barneo Camp is relatively close to the North Pole, and imagine this: its ice base is slowly drifting at (~0.5mph) due to the northerly winds - so its LAT/LONG position is constantly changing too!

For aircraft, I wished to fall back to Fletcher's party. The actual plane was a ski-modified C-47 Skytrain (of very similar paint and appearance as the one I've used in the images, below). I've used INS for navigation (e.g. please see the 6th and 7th images, where, after INS activation, the plane is banking left and aligning with the track - GPS/MAP displays are shown for information only, GPS is not enabled). Eventually, after reaching 5 miles of Borneo Camp (please see (left-over) distance [4-5], to Fix05, on the last INS CDU shot), within sight of the two faint lights of Borneo Camp ahead of the plane (was glad to spot the Camp!), landing was then made visually (please see the remaining images).

And, finally, it was (good) fun to have (safely) arrived into my (imaginary) North Pole...but, this, here, looks (quite) desolate, forbidden, and lifeless (compared to Antarctica)....oh well...at least some people seem to be around...let's go and check...! Thanks for your interest (and comments)! Hope you enjoy!

[Drzewiecki Design(UUEE)/Manfred Jahn(C-47)/AS(FSC)/FW(Barneo Camp)/REX]

Amazing story and great screenshots. Flying to or over the Poles in FSX certainly looks strange - the scenery and clouds get squashed up, or it did the last time I tried it. 

***Fantastic***

Mark, Patrick, and folks: Thank you!! Much appreciated the comments too!

Quite amazing stories indeed...e.g. Chkalov's crew had to fly over extended (pure) ice Polar regions...in severe weather and poor visibility conditions - often "flying blind" with minimal navigation equipment.

"As the flight neared the Polar Regions, the aircraft’s magnetic compass became inoperable; navigation would have to rely solely on dead reckoning and a solar heading indicator, with corrections made by regular sun and star observations. Unfortunately, bad weather awaited the flight and only rarely could navigator Belyakof take accurate sightings."

Their intended destination was Oakland (CA), but, they landed at Vancouver (WA), with barely 11 gallons of fuel left after more than 5000 miles of flight! (Note: BTW, I noticed now that, at one place, in my post, I've mistakenly referred to CYVR as Chkalov's (final) arrival airport. It would be actually KVUO. Please excuse.)

Regarding Fletcher's expedition, the flown airplane was Douglas C-47A-90-DL Skytrain 43-15665. The C-47A was powered by two supercharged (Pratt & Whitney) 1,200 horsepower radial engines.

And, here is a curious finding about the fate of this (famous) plane:

On 3rd November 1952, 43-15665 crashed on Fletcher’s Ice island (one of the North Pole Ice Stations). There were no casualties but the aircraft was abandoned on site. Later, the Ice island that was an iceberg detached and drifted away. The plane has since sunk to the depths of the Arctic Ocean (with no supporting land underneath in North Pole). Tragic!

 

Mark: Correct about the issues near Poles, you've mentioned about clouds.

Below is an excerpt, I'd (earlier) come across, in Aerosoft's Antarctica Scenery Manual:

"(In the Poles) FSX thinks you are further away from the landclass tiles in front of you than you actually are and therefore sharpens them a lot later than it would do the same on more common latitudes. The stretching problem also applies to – surprise! – CLOUDS! The further south you get, the more stretched/squeezed those nice fluffy clouds look. That’s another reason why we didn’t cover the Pole because things would just look odd there once you add some weather there...."