COBI Dornier Do J Wal Amundsen N-25 Set 1384

COBI's Dornier Do J Wal "Amundsen" N-25 is a 1:48 model built from 483 blocks, 35.5 cm long with a 45 cm wingspan, released for the centenary of Roald Amundsen's 1925 polar flight. The propellers rotate, the ailerons move, and the colours and historical markings of the original are reproduced in print. A figure of Amundsen is included.

Twenty-five days digging a runway out of ice

On 21 May 1925 two of these aircraft, N-24 and N-25, left Svalbard for the North Pole with six men aboard. Neither reached it.

They came down on the pack ice at 87°44' north — around 250 kilometres short — when fuel and navigation ran out. N-24 was damaged on landing and could not be repaired. The six men were now standing on drifting sea ice, well beyond any possible rescue, with one flyable aircraft that had nowhere to take off from.

What they did next is the reason the expedition is remembered. Using shovels, an ice anchor and their hands, they cleared and levelled a strip on the floe — shifting an estimated 500 tonnes of ice and snow — while the floe itself moved and cracked underneath them and the strip had to be started again more than once.

It took twenty-five days. On 15 June all six men crammed into N-25, which was designed for four, jettisoned everything they could spare, and got off the ice at the second attempt. They reached the north coast of Svalbard, ran out of fuel, and were picked up by a sealing vessel.

Amundsen reached the pole the following year, in the airship Norge, and flew over it.

Why a flying boat

There were no airfields in the Arctic. A Wal could land on open water or on a lead in the ice, which made it the only practical choice — and the reason it has that flat-bottomed hull with the engines mounted above the wing, out of the spray.

Specifications

Pieces: 483 · Figures: 1, Roald Amundsen · Scale: 1:48
Model dimensions: 35.5 × 45 × 10 cm (14.0 × 17.7 × 3.9 in)