Bernt Balchen was one of the most experienced polar aviators of the twentieth century. His career ranged from the expeditions of Amundsen and Byrd to wartime Arctic aviation, search and rescue and postwar cold-weather operations.
Balchen trained with the Norwegian naval air service and joined Roald Amundsen’s 1926 Spitsbergen expedition, though he was not aboard Norge on its polar flight.
He met Richard Byrd during that period and later went to the United States. On Byrd’s 1927 transatlantic flight, Balchen served as relief pilot and brought unusually strong instrument-flying ability.
In Antarctica in 1929, Balchen piloted the Ford Trimotor Floyd Bennett on the first flight over the South Pole. Byrd was expedition commander and navigator, but Balchen’s role as the aircraft commander in flight should remain explicit.
Balchen later specialized in Arctic operations and rescue. During World War II he helped establish air routes and bases in Greenland used for ferrying aircraft and rescuing crews.
Postwar, he commanded the U.S. Air Force’s 10th Rescue Squadron in Alaska and developed cold-weather flying and rescue practices.
Smithsonian records credit a 1949 C-54 flight with making Balchen the first pilot to have flown over both geographic poles. Claims about polar “firsts” should still remain attached to their institutional source because early records can be complicated.
For TransitSatellite, Balchen’s story should connect navigation, aircraft operation and cold-weather logistics rather than treating him merely as the pilot standing behind a more famous expedition leader.