HOPES HE WILL FLY
TO THE SOUTH POLE.
BRITON WILL COMBINE BAL-
LOON AND BIPLANE.
Captain Webster, F. R. G. S., British
Army, Retired, Estimates the
Cost of His Antarctic Expedi-
tion at $200,000.
To fly to the South pole in a combined dirigible balloon and aeroplane is the purpose of Captain R. V. Webster, F. R. G. S., formerly of the British army, and now a wealthy tea and rubber planter of Ceylon, who is in this country learning all he can about the latest in American aeronautics. Captain Webster is now on his way to Washington, where he will have an audience with the members of the government aeronautic board. He was at the Baltimore hotel last night.
The Walter Wellman plan of going in a balloon is all right as far as it goes, thinks Captain Webster, but the explorer must be sure that he can readily return.
"Wellman may get to the North pole, all right," he said last night, "but I entertain grave doubts as to his ability to get back to civilization again. Gas, you know, may gradually be dissipated from a balloon on such a trip. It might carry an explorer to the pole, but I'm afraid he'd find to his horror that he would not have enough left to return.
Captain Webster is of the opinion that the South pole can be found by combining heavier-than-air and lighter-than-air craft, so that if one fails the other will be left to depend upon.
Although his plans are thus far tentative, his idea now is to suspend a biplane, perhaps of the type used by the Wrights, from an elongated balloon shaped like Count Zeppelin's huge dirigible.
This military and aeronautical Eurasian has the right to write F. R. G. S. after his name, as well as Captain before it, for he holds a life fellow hip in the Royal Geographical Society of London . To this society he says he has given the English equivalent of $60,000 for the purpose of financing an antarctic expedition which he will command. It will take a total of $200,000 to pay for such a trip.
