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June 1 Saturday at Baddeck

Journal Atlanta Ga 20 Mar 1907
WELMAN, WITH WONDERFUL AIR SHIP, NOW READY FOR FLIGHT TO NORTH POLE
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Great Balloon Has Been Building Two Years and Will Lift Eight Tons—Five Men Going With Ice Automobile Engines and Wireless Apparatus.
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CHICAGO.—Modern air navigation will receive its most thrilling and difficult test next month, when Walter Wellman, Washington correspondent of the Chicago Record-Herald, will sail for the north pole in the largest and best equipped airship ever built.
Wellman's flight was scheduled for last summer, but it was decided to give another year's work at the factory in Paris to the great balloon and its wonderful car.
Wellman, who has made two unsuccessful attempts at the pole by vessel, has been studying airships for years for the purpose of employing that means of

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WALTER WELLMAN
Chief of the Expedition by Airship to the North Pole.
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transportation in a dash north. He is now an expert.
The party will probably consist of five. Wellman will be the chief. The others are:
Major H. B. Hersey, well known as an enthusiastic aeronaut, one time member of Roosevelt's Rough Riders and now a member of the Aero club of Paris; M. Gaston Hervieu, as aeronaut-in-chief; Maxwell J. Smith, wireless telegraph expert; M. Paul Colordeau, expert mechanican. Major Hersey recently won the balloon race across the English channel, and has a record of seven ascensions in ten days.
The plan is to sail from Dane's island, northern Norway, at which place the parts of the balloon will be assembled. The party will go as far north as possible in the airship, and if it fails to carry them to the pole they will proceed farther north by an ice automobile which they will carry in the car.
They will also have wireless telegraphy equipment and will attempt to communicate regularly with a station at Hammerfest, Norway.
Wellman has been in Paris all winter watching the finishing work of M. Godard, builder of the airship, and he will start for the north in a few days.
The airship, which has been building two years, is of the most practical balloon type. The supporting gas bag is 164 feet long, with its greatest diameter 52 1-2 feet. The surface of the bag contains 21,-98 square feet, and is capable of holding 24,225 cubic feet of gas; its litting power is 16,000 pounds, or eight tons.
The car is entirely of steel tubing,

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This Photograph Presents a Front View of the Car Which Will Be Suspended from the Great Balloon. Only Parts of the Giant Rudders Show. Behind the Men Standing in the Car Is the Cabin in Which They Will Live. Below the Car Will Me Strapped the Gasoline Basket and the Ice Automobile. Mr. Wellman is Seen in the Above Picture on the Extreme Right.

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The Ice Automobile for the Wellman Expedition. Notice the Great Drum-Like Wheel in Front. It Is Built Big and Heavy and is Expected to Balance the Rest of the Machine in Climbing Jagged Ice Hills. The Spikes of Sharp Steel Will Grip the Ice.

measures 52 1-3 feet from stem to propeller, and contains an engine room and cabin for the crew. Below this structure is a basket to carry the supply of gasoline, this weight also to serve as ballast.
The ship has three engines, one of 70-horse power, another of 25-horse power and the other of 5-horse power. With only the big engine in operation, the machine is designed to make 12 miles an hour in a quiet atmosphere, and 19 miles an hour with the three motors working.
The steering apparatus is managed in a simple manner from the cabin of the vessel.
The ice automobile, or motor sledge, is small, and designed solely to haul sledges over ice or heavy snow crust; it looks like a miniature road roller, but is very light in construction.