Cartoonish

Local cartoonist Matt Davidson puts together a
cartoon each week, satirizing something of topic
at McMurdo. This week, Air Services is the focus.
I haven't seen any of these panels show up yet for
Bag Drag so they must be saving them for the last
few flights!

Tag It

To get your belongings out of McMurdo, for the most
part, they have to go on an airplane. And to get
them on an airplane they have to be tagged. Very
similar to airports in the real world, but here
you tag your own bag instead of having a little
machine spit out a barcoded sticky tag that goes
on your suitcase. For the most part, our bags go
one of three places: Christchurch, South Pole, or
one of the various Field Camps located around the
continent.


Christchurch


South Pole


Field Camps
This year this included
* AGAP
* Byrd Surface Camp
* Casey Station
* Patriot Hills
* Siple Dome
* WAIS Divide


There are also tags that should be removed from
bags so that the Cargo Handlers don't get them
mixed up and place them on the wrong pallet.
Yellow - Inbound from South Pole and various camps
Orange - Christchurch southbound Boomerang Bag
Black & White - Christchurch southbound Handcarry Bag
Blue & White - Christchurch southbound Checked Bag

In short, the tag system is definitely not confusing
for folks that have been down here a couple of years,
but for the typical FNG, it can leave them scratching
their heads.

Bag Drag / Transport

A major part of my job is to conduct
Bag Drags and Transports for flights.
When people fly back to New Zealand, out
to Field Camps, or down to South Pole,
they have to come through us at Air
Services for their transport needs.
This means that up to a day before their
flight, they need to Bag Drag. In other
words, they have to bring everything they're
taking to their destination with them to be
weighed and prepared for flight. There is a
whole checklist of procedures that folks must
follow in order to prepare for their flight.


Anywhere from 4 hours to several days,
depending on flights, weather, etc.
passengers then prepare to leave McMurdo
for their flights. To do this, they must
Transport through Building 140 (Movement
Control Center (MCC)). This is where we
Air Service Reps register their readiness
for the flight, read them a litany of rules
and then send them on a vehicle to the
runway, where they catch their flight.
It can either be fun or stressful, depending
on the group mostly. Today, I did my first
Bag Drag and Transports of the season. Both
went very smoothly. Hopefully the harbinger
of a good season.

Bags to Drag

Hopefully the last Bag Drag of the year took place
today. 100 people are due to leave tomorrow and
all of them brought their bags through Air Services
and I weighed them on the scales. The passengers
and their baggage were a combined weight of
21,864 pounds! That's actually only just over 218
pounds per person. Some folks must be dieting,
because the season average was around 235 pounds
per person. Plus, unlike bags at the new Heathrow
terminal in London, it's extremely doubtful any of
these bags will be lost. They, and their owners
are heading north...leaving us to our peace and
quiet of winter.