Cape Denison is a rocky point at the head of Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica. It was discovered in 1912 by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–14) under Douglas Mawson, who named it for Sir Hugh Denison of Sydney, a patron of the expedition. The cape was the site of the expedition's main base.

First airplane in Antarctica

The first airplane to be brought to Antarctica (in 1911) was stationed at Cape Denison, although it never took to the air on the continent because it was damaged before being shipped there. The aircraft, a Vickers Monoplane (the first aircraft type to be built by Vickers) was used briefly as a "propeller driven snow tractor" and then abandoned, as the pistons seized up due to the cold.¹

Relic found on January 1^st, 2010

On New Year's Day, 2010, members of the latest expedition to Cape Denison came across pieces of the fuselage tubing which had been trapped in the ice for nearly a century.¹

See also

• Mawson's Huts

External links

• Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Relic of Antarctica's first plane found on ice-edge

The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the copyrighted Wikipedia "Cape Denison" article.