The air-tractor sledge was a converted
fixed-wing aircraft taken on the 1911–14
Australasian Antarctic Expedition, the first plane to be taken to the
Antarctic. Expedition leader
Douglas Mawson had planned to use the
Vickers R.E.P. Type Monoplane as a reconnaissance and
search and rescue tool, and to assist in publicity, but the aircraft crashed heavily during a test flight only two months before Mawson's scheduled departure date. The plane, stripped of its wings, was nevertheless sent south with the expedition, and converted to a
sledge; brakes were fashioned from a pair of geological drills and a steering system from the plane's
landing gear. The air-tractor was first tested in November 1912 and subsequently assisted in laying depots for the summer sledging parties, but its use during the expedition was minimal; the freezing conditions resulted in the jamming of the engine's pistons, and its frame was left on the ice when the expedition returned home in December 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 parts of the tail a year later. The foundation believes that the air-tractor is still at the expedition's base, buried beneath the ice. (more...)
... that Indonesian band
Kekal has remained active and continues to release newly recorded material even though there are no longer any official members?
2008 – With the victory in the
4×100 m medley relay at the
Beijing Summer Olympics, Michael Phelps set the records for the most gold medals won by an individual in a single Olympics (8) as well as total career gold medals (14) in modern Olympic history.
The Hohenzollern Bridge crossing the
Rhine in
Cologne, Germany, with the
Cologne Cathedral in the background. The bridge is a
tied-arch railway bridge, as well as a
pedestrian bridge. Originally built in 1911, it survived numerous
Allied bombings in World War II, only to be destroyed by German engineers as the war drew to a close in 1945. Reconstruction began soon after and the bridge was opened to pedestrian traffic in 1948 and completely opened in 1959.
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