Episode: 23. Site Number: 073. Date Posted: 15 September 1996. Location: National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, USA. Type: Aircraft.
In Gallery 105 of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington you'll find on display Lincoln Ellsworth's Polar Star, a Northrup 2B Gamma single engine airplane that in November, 1935, Ellsworth and Herbert Hollick-Kenyon flew 2,300 miles in six stages from Dundee Island in the Weddell Sea to Little America II . . . or nearly. They ran out of fuel 16 miles short of their goal. Abandoning the Polar Star they sledged to Little America, arriving at the then-vacant station on December 15, 1935. Thankfully, Ellsworth's ship, the Wyatt Earp, arrived on January 22, 1936 to rescue them.
The exhibit includes a couple of penguins, a mural backdrop and a case containing Bernt Balchen's flying helmet and goggles.
For a bit more information refer to the NASM web page at http://www.nasm.edu/galleries/gal105/gal105.html#STAR.