minute of the day we would look concernedly at the weather conditions becoming foggier and foggier and delaying us. My all-engrossing thought was: “Now or never.” And thus we carried on. The arrangement was that N 25 should start first. There was a slight breeze from the end of the fjord, but in order to prevent a turning of 180° with the heavy-laden plane, we decided to try first to make a start beyond the fjord. We therefore stopped in the middle of the ice and started to put our flying suits on, which we did not want to don until the last minute in order not to get too warm before starting. Suddenly we saw N 25 gliding landwards and flying past us with both engines working at full power with constantly increasing speed. It was clear immediately that the start would be successful. I did not get time to see more nor to put on snow-glasses and gloves, for the ice began to sink more and more under the plane’s weight. There was already a foot of water on the ice round about us, and at the same time Omdal informed us that the water was also rising inside fairly rapidly. These conditions coming all at once made it imperative to act, and a few seconds later I had given N 24’s 720-horsepower full scope. It looked as if the plane spent a little time in consideration, then started slowly to glide ahead, the water on the ice disappeared, and quicker and quicker we drove over the lightly snow-covered ice-plain. It seemed as if the high glacier at the end of the fjord was coming to meet us at a dangerous speed. But a glance at the speedometer showed a steady, regularly increasing speed which had a completely calming effect. As the indicator showed 110 kilometers per hour I thought that the plane could rise, but in order to make quite certain, I waited until the indicator showed 120 kilometers before I let it rise slowly. It was an inspiring feeling to be in the air at last. The fascinating expedition had at last begun. The time of preparation was over. Our admiration for the plane’s ability knew no bounds. As mentioned before we were quite prepared to face the necessity of having to jettison a part of the load, namely petrol. According to the contract the plane was only bound to carry 2,500 kilos weight, but we got away all right with 3,100 kilos. As we learned later, the starting track was 1,400 meters long, but if necessity had demanded it could have been considerably shorter.