MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/. Russia's traveler Fedor Konyukhov and pilot Igor Potapkin are onboard the 50 Let Pobedy nuclear-powered icebreaker on the way to a starting point of a new record flight to the North Pole, press service of Konyukhov's International Expedition Center said.
"The world's most powerful nuclear-powered icebreaker, The 50 Let Pobedy (50 Years of Victory)," navigated by Captain Ruslan Sasov, is heading for Franz Josef Land, and, having passed the archipelago, the team will be searching for a suitable ice floe, of the size similar to that of a football field, to organize an improvised runway for Fedor Konyukhov and Igor Potapkin, who plan to reach the North Pole on a paraglider," the press service said.
The record flight will be up to 800 km long, it will take 12 - 14 hours. After landing, Konyukhov and Potapkin will set up a camp at the North Pole, where they will wait for the icebreaker.
Konyukhov's expedition
According to Atomflot's communications department, it will take the 50 Let Pobedy nuclear icebreaker two and a half days to get from the take-off point to the North Pole. When on the North Pole, the crew will take Igor Potapkin and the paraglider on board, and Fedor Konyukhov will stay on the ice floe, where he will deploy a single drifting polar mini-station.
He will continue implementing a program of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology (the Russian Academy of Sciences): the seismic activity of the Arctic Ocean floor, the intensity of melting and drift patterns of pack ice, and the ocean's microplastics pollution. Fyodor Konyukhov will be able to board the 50 Let Pobedy nuclear-powered icebreaker only on July 30-31 after the record three-week solo drift. At that time, the icebreaker will be due to bring another group of tourists to the North Pole.
Preparations for records
In 2022, the Konyukhov-Potapkin crew made a training flight on a paraglider to the North Pole. Back then, the icebreaker landed them on an ice floe at about 85 degrees north latitude, from where they started the world's first paragliding flight in the Arctic high latitudes. After takeoff, the crew headed for the North Pole. After three hours and 172 km, the pilots landed on an ice floe. The icebreaker was sailing towards the North Pole, picked up the crew and continued to serve the Polar Travel Club tourist cruise.
The paraglider was upgraded after the training flight, the press service said. With support of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, a composite fairing was developed that improves the ultra-light aircraft's aerodynamics and the flight range. It also protects the crew from oncoming wind flows and from hypothermia. The fiberglass fabric for the fairing, which weighs only 20 kg, was previously supplied by Rosatom's composite division.
"I am very happy that Russia has specialists who can create and modify such aircraft; moreover, this country has new materials that may improve significantly the paraglider's flight specifications - to lighten the structure, to cut fuel consumption, to extend the non-stop range," Atomflot quoted Konyukhov as saying before the icebreaker set off on a voyage to the North Pole.
About traveler
Fedor Konyukhov is the first person in the world to reach the planet's five poles: the Northern Geographical (three times), the Southern Geographical, the Pole of Inaccessibility in the Arctic Ocean, the top of Mount Everest (Alpinists pole), Cape Horn (Yachtsmen pole). He was the first Russian to reach in sole voyages the North and South Poles on skis, the first to circumnavigate the world, the first to complete the Seven Peaks program, the first to cross the ocean on a rowing boat and to circumnavigate the globe on a hot air balloon.