Norge (airship)

Norge
Other name(s)	N-1, I-SAAN (Italian registration number)
Type	N-class semi-rigid airship
Manufactured	1923
First flight	March 1924 as N-1; April 1926 as Norge
Owners and operators	Umberto Nobile et al
Fate	Dismantled at Teller, Alaska, for transport to Europe. Never flown again.

The Norge was a semi-rigid Italian-built airship that carried out the first verified trip of any kind to the North Pole, an overflight on 12 May 1926. It was also the first aircraft to fly over the polar ice cap between Europe and America. The expedition was the brainchild of polar explorer and expedition leader Roald Amundsen, the airship's designer and pilot Umberto Nobile and the wealthy American adventurer and explorer Lincoln Ellsworth who, along with the Aero Club of Norway, financed the trip, which was known as the Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight.