The Sixties Catalogue

T h e S I X T I E S 14 Actual Hand-Lettered Airport Sign From The First Commercial Transpolar Flight 12. (DUSTIN, Frederick G.) Airport sign: “Dustin Transpolar Flight.” Rio de Janeiro, 1968. Original narrow metal hand-painted sign. $1500. Click for more info Unique artifact, documenting the historic first commercial round-the- world flight, tracking longitudinally across the two poles and touching down on all seven continents including Antarctica. “Frederick G. Dustin was employed as a fuel engineer on the second Byrd Antarctic expedition (1933-35)... In 1968 Modern Air Transport chartered a Convair 990A jet aircraft called Polar Byrd I to fly round- the-world on an exotic world tour” with Dustin serving the tour’s eponymous passenger/explorer (WingNet). One stop on the return itinerary was Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the reception committee had erected a hand-painted welcoming sign, reading “Dustin Transpolar Flight.” A passenger named Bellafontaine became the custodian of this sign. Only a fewminor paint-chips. Fine condition. “Not only was this the first charter tourist flight to land at McMurdo... it also was the first American charter tourist flight to land in the USSR.”—South Pole Station