1939 Artic Cruiser ?

[armytruck63]

The ATHS magazine "Wheels of Time" did an article on the cruiser a while back. They said the road ride was horrible because the machine bucked badly at speeds over 15 MPH.

 

[mountianrider]

Runk, I saw your links of that Antarctic snow cruiser site. They went out on the ice with SLICKS? Big town science types never been on a farm or what? Even then they knew that good profiles are needed for good traction.

Dr. Poulter had been out on the ice but then again, they mainly had to worry about having a big contact surface and easy sliding over the ice with sleighs.

Even so, great idea and great thing, would have loved to drive it around in Antarctica.

I have to agree. Like what kind of scientist was Dr. Poulter anyways? One that didn't believe in the scientific method? For example, take testing an idea, which seems to be sort of basic, but what do I know? After all, just look at the eggheaded German Engineers and the skinny little tracks their early stuff had, yet again, perfectly acceptable. We can all see how well that worked out for the German Army in the Russian mud and snow. Makes one wonder what was the worse death trap.

Dr. Poulter must have been a frustrated Duck designer is all I can think of. This thing seems more suited for amphibious operations than it does for cossing ice and snow. Still, pretty interesting and it would really be something to see once again.

I seriously doubt the Artic Cruiser is sunken because the Antarctic is mostly an ice covered land mass. It's probably just sitting under 90 feet of ice and snow waiting for a bunch of kooks to come and find it.

 

[FASTNOVA]

We would have to gather a bunch of us willing to do it with the right equipment to dig the thing out.

I know this much, if we dug it out and brought it back it would certainly make the news.

 

[11Echo]

I have to agree. Like what kind of scientist was Dr. Poulter anyways? One that didn't believe in the scientific method? For example, take testing an idea, which seems to be sort of basic, but what do I know? After all, just look at the eggheaded German Engineers and the skinny little tracks their early stuff had, yet again, perfectly acceptable. We can all see how well that worked out for the German Army in the Russian mud and snow. Makes one wonder what was the worse death trap.

Dr. Poulter must have been a frustrated Duck designer is all I can think of. This thing seems more suited for amphibious operations than it does for cossing ice and snow. Still, pretty interesting and it would really be something to see once again.

I seriously doubt the Artic Cruiser is sunken because the Antarctic is mostly an ice covered land mass. It's probably just sitting under 90 feet of ice and snow waiting for a bunch of kooks to come and find it.

The ice shelf where the snow cruiser was located is gone.
The pic below shows an encampment on a broken piece of ice shelf in an Antarctic ice flow. It is gone now also.

 

[wreckerman893]

I know this much, if we dug it out and brought it back it would certainly make the news.

They dug a P-38 Lightning out from under the snow a few years ago.....it has been restored and is flying. Glacier Girl - The Lost Squadron (Recovery of a P-38 from beneath a Greenland ice cap)

Anything is possible with enough money and time.

This issue would be how to get it up to the top of the ice....they had to dissassemble the P-38 and haul it up a shaft they had drilled in the ice with a heated drill.

The truth is truely stranger than fiction.

 

[wreckerman893]

Just saw 11Echo's post....it would actually be easier to retrieve the beast from under water than under ice.

If it could be located using side scanning sonar Side-scan sonar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia it could be raised using a heavy lift barge or air bag lifiting devices.

It would prob cost a butt load of money to do it.

 

[maddawg308]

That might be a costly recovery, WM. According to Wikipedia:

"The Southern Ocean lies in the Southern Hemisphere. It has typical depths of between 4,000 and 5,000 meters (13,000 to 16,000 ft) over most of its extent with only limited areas of shallow water. The Antarctic continental shelf appears generally narrow and unusually deep, its edge lying at depths up to 800 meters (2,600 ft), compared to a global mean of 133 meters (436 ft)."

What this means is that the depth of the water gets REAL deep REAL fast the further you get from shore, a lot more than around, say, Virginia Beach or the Florida coast. I remember reading that in most areas around the Southern Ocean as it's called, the depth of the water increases 0.5 to 1.0 feet per FOOT away from shore. So, if the Antarctic Cruiser's ice flow melted when the Cruiser was 1,000 feet away from land, it could very well be in 500-1,000 feet depth of water.

Recovery of an object from more than 100 foot depth increases geometrically the deeper it is. Unless the Cruiser is made of gold or has the bones of Jimmy Hoffa on it, I doubt many people could afford the recovery of this vehicle, regardless of how historically interesting it is.

 

[FASTNOVA]

What a shame. Talk about let the air out my dream balloon. Thanks maddawg.

 

[11Echo]

What a shame. Talk about let the air out my dream balloon. Thanks maddawg.

This excerpt was in an article I found on the net.

But the Snow Cruiser may be awaiting rediscovery. According to an article in Polar Geography, by Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center,
"Analysis of a series of maps, sightings, satellite images, and aerial photos indicates that a 5 km2 section of the eastern side of the Bay of Whales containing the buried remains of several bases from the 'heroic era' of Antarctic exploration calved in early 1962. A small iceberg from this event (or closely-spaced events), with the remains of Little America III exposed in the ice face, was sighted in February 1963 near the western end of the Ross Ice Shelf front. More recent calving events, monitored by satellite images, confirm that most small icebergs generated in the eastern Ross drift westward and repeatedly impact the ice front, fragmenting as they move. This implies that a number of artifacts from the bases, such at the 1939-1940 Byrd Snow Cruiser, are likely strewn along the seabed near the 1962 ice front position. Major Ross Ice Shelf calving events of 2000 and 2002 have made much of the 1962 front area accessible to ships. Thus a search for the artifacts is technically more feasible for the next few years until shelf ice flow re-covers the area."