Australians at McMurdo

Last week, McMurdo was visited by two groups of
Australians from the Australian Antarctic Division
(AAD) on their way to Casey Station. The AAD and
the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) has an
agreement in place where the AAD flies USAP personnel
from Christchurch to McMurdo via their A319 Airbus.
USAP then reciprocates by flying AAD personnel to
Casey via our LC-130s. This set up has been in place
for a couple of years now and it seems it is a win/win
situation for both parties. It was fun for us to see
all of the yellow-coated Australians enjoying themselves
at McMurdo. One of the two 26 person groups was delayed
for a couple of days due to bad weather here. It was
fun to imagine if we would be stranded at Casey for a
couple of days and were able to explore the area there.
Before he left, our friend Simon gave me a couple of
the 100 year commemorative patches for the AAD (pictured
above). Lynn and I have a special place in our hearts
for the AAD since we were able to receive a really nice
tour there last year during our visit to Hobart. I hope
the folks that were here felt just as welcome as we did.

The First Herc

We received our first LC-130 Herc here today at the
Ice Runway. Of course, the weather stopped another
from arriving, but eventually we'll have Hercs flying
in and out of here with great regularity, headed to
South Pole and all kinds of field camps. It will be
a busy season.

Cargo

The largest part of my department, ATO, handles cargo.
Receiving and Sending cargo makes this place run.
Granted, we get a huge amount of cargo each year on
the vessel, which will be here next week, but the day
to day operations of cargo transport via airplanes
is handled by ATO. As you can see from the photo,
all of the items are tightly strapped onto large,
flat pallets, called Air Force Pallets that slide
easily onto either a LC-130 or C-17 and covered for
protection from the elements. These particular
pallets are headed for Christchurch.


Once the cargo is ready to go, it receives a PID, or
Pallet Identification Card. There are two of these on
each loaded pallet...on the Aft and Left side, so they
can be seen on the plane by the Loadmaster.
It is HVY (heavy). It is Do Not Freeze (DNF).
It is Fragile (FRG). It should be Kept Upright (KU).
It should be Kept Dry (KD). This particular pallet
is 100 inches high, weighs 4200 pounds, is going to
Christchurch (CHC) and is the 172nd pallet going to
Christchurch this season (C172). If it were going to
South Pole, it would have a "P" designation instead of
a "C" designation. Also, this PID is yellow. This
means that it should either be kept DNF or KF. If it
was white, it would be neither DNF or KF.


The process of keeping track of what is on each pallet,
where it is going and where it will be placed on an
airplane is the job of the Load Planner. If the
load of pallets and cargo (this includes passengers)
is not balanced correctly, the plane wouldn't be
able to safely fly to its destination. They use
a program called AALPS to help them with this task.

So there you go...a very very brief synopsis of how
cargo works here in ATO. Of course there are lots more
stages of the process that I don't or probably will never
know, but this makes sense to me now, and hopefully to
those reading this, it will to you too. Thanks to
Loadplanners Melanie and Matt for their help with this
post.

Pegasus Airfield

This year, both skier and wheeled aircraft are
using one runway. Pegasus has been converted
to operate LC-130's, C-17's, Baslers and Twin
Otters. They don't actually use the same
runway, but share the same facilities at Pegasus.
In the past, all of the skiers used Williams Field
and the C-17s would use Pegasus, but in an effort
to save both money and manpower Pegasus has been
made the sole landing site with Williams Field
as an emergency backup. I found these great
photos of the operations on the common drive
and they give a great viewpoint of how things
work out there.


This gives a good view of the refueling set-up.


The Skiway that is utilized by the skiers.


The White Ice Runway, used by the C-17s

Blustery

Although this photo is from a football game,
thousands of miles away, it's strangely appropriate
here as well. Strange because it's summer at 77 or
so degrees south and it's snowing. Yes, it is
Antarctica and it does snow here, but not with the
regularity we've been having. It canceled all
seven Herc flights today and the C-17 flight from
Christchurch. Forecasts call for it to be just as
bad or worse tomorrow. The only benefit is that it's
very warm. Very typical when we get snow accumulation
of any kind. If it was much warmer, it would be
raining.

Making the Move

The move to Pegasus Runway has begun and the
first C-17 since the first week of the season
is landing there. The Ice Runway is officially
closed, meaning no more quick trips to the
runway, and much longer transportation times
for passengers either headed north or south.
This year, both wheeled planes (C-17's) and
skiers (LC-130's) will be landing at Pegasus,
instead of the skiers landing at Williams Field.
This will add even more time to the transport
times to Pole and Field Camps as well. It
should be interesting over the next few
months to see how all this works.

The Long Day

Today turned into a long day. Everything actually
went very smoothly for most of the day. Flights
actually made it to WAIS Divide and to Byrd Surface
Camp. No small accomplishment considering the
weather in those places lately. Just after 4PM,
I needed to conduct a crew tour. Pretty standard
stuff, but Store was closed so I drove the crew
to a few additional photo-taking spots. When
I dropped them off at the plane, I was instructed
to stick around. I would need to pick up four
generals and their escort from the LC-130 Herc
and take them to the C-17. However, when I picked
them up, they decided to wait in the Airfield Galley
until the plane left. Not a big deal at all, but
by now the clock was spinning and my day was getting
longer. By the time I dropped them off at the
plane going north, I had been at work for 13 1/2
hours. Ugh. Just in time to eat dinner and go
to bed.

The Australians Are Here!

One of my favorite things about working in Air Services,
and with the US Antarctic Program in general, is meeting
people from all over the world. Today, a Airbus operated
by Skytraders landed at the Ice Runway and deposited 50
Australians. Kiwis from New Zealand we see. Aussies from
Australia, we don't. All of their stations are far to the west
of us and we definitely don't share the same airspace.
This group are hitching several rides on our LC-130s
from the Ice Runway to the skiway at Casey Station.


I know this sounds weird, but it was interesting to see all
of their bags labeled "Casey" and "Wilkins". Unlike the US
program, each of the Australian stations have different
colored bag and cargo tags, representing each station.
Of course, I was always interested in Airline luggage tags
before they became bar code-ized and seeing exotic
three letter codes for the cities was the rule and not the
exception.


We're used to seeing the Americans in their Red parkas
and the Kiwis in their Black and Orange parkas, but it
was refreshing to see so many folks in Yellow parkas
running around town. Although it definitely contributes
to a very crowded station. We have 1010 people on
station right now with more to come tomorrow. If we
don't get some flights out to Pole soon, we'll all be
sharing beds!

To The Pole

Today I was chosen to be a tour guide. Not just any tour guide, but
a tour guide to the South Pole! Leading 9 people, we hopped on a
LC-130 and off for a three hour trip to the bottom of the planet. As
far south as one can go. When I got there I got my obligatory "hero
shot", getting a good photo of me with the Geographical South Pole.
The candy-striped shot I stood with last time is Ceremonial Pole.
Although the Geographic Pole never moves (it's actually the station
that moves on the ice sheet) it is actually about 50 yards further
away than the last time I was here two years ago.


The nine people I was responsible for were chosen by the Chalet and I
was chosen as a guide because I had been to the Pole and knew it's
layout. I was very honored but had mixed emotions since it was such
a long travel day for a half hour on the ground. Imagine going to New
York or Paris on a three hour flight...then getting to spend a half hour
there. I also knew we were really busy at work and felt kind of guilty for
taking the time to go. However, I quickly got over that feeling!. We had
a set route we were supposed to follow and although we were cautioned
that we might only get to go to the Poles, I told the group that if they
hustled, they could go inside as well and go to the Post Office and get
their passports stamped. Everyone hustled, behaved themselves and
we got done just as the plane was making its last minute preparations for
take off.


The station's exterior had changed quite a bit since I was last here in
2007. All of the exterior siding is now installed. Previously it was still
in the plywood covering stage and looked like a big series of cargo
containers. I am however amazed at how much snow has piled up
around the station in the short time since it has been completed.
It's easily a 15 foot drop off from the edge of the snow to the door
at the bottom of the beer can (the cylindrical stairway at the end of
of the building). It's not that the building is sinking...it's that the
snow is rising. They've built in a lifting mechanism for the entire
building but apparently they haven't implemented it yet. Otherwise,
it's an impressive building that definitely stands out in a desolate,
empty place.


As I stated earlier, we got back to the plane in the nick of time. The herc
is definitely a unique plane. Although I wouldn't want to ride in one all
the time, they are effective in a number of different climates and locales.
The particular plane is called the "Pride of Scotia" and is operated by the
New York Air National Guard. As you can see, it's operated with skis
as it's primary landing gear instead of wheels. They can use wheels when
landing back in Christchurch but for the entire year on the Ice, they
remain unused, shuttling back and forth from Williams Field to the
South Pole on skis only.


Something new and fun for me was getting the chance to ride in the
cockpit. When I was getting back on the plane, one of the crew
members asked if I wanted to ride up front for takeoff. So I
strapped in and in a matter of moments, we were off! It was
hard to see anything because the Polar Plateau really is a big
empty area of nothing! Flat, white surface for nothing but hundreds
of miles in all directions. It was fun though to enjoy the sensation
of takeoff!


By the time I moved back to the cargo/passenger area, we were
starting to fly over the Trans Antarctic Mountains. This is a long
spine of mountains that runs across the continent and separates
East Antarctica from West Antarctica. I can't describe how beautiful
the scenery was from the air. I saw this great glacier ( and several
others just as impressive). It boggles the mind that most of these
areas have never seen a single human footprint and many geological
locations are simply unnamed. As beautiful as all of this is, it is
totally hostile to human life for long and I did a quick shudder
when I thought what it would be like to be stranded there. It gives
new meaning to the phrase "Not fit for man nor beast".


One of the favorite things I saw when flying back was this series of
six mountain tops. They look like islands, but what they really are
are the tops of mountains that have been almost completely
covered by ice and snow. Rather like islands, but islands in a sea
b of ice. I pictured this was what much of northern North
America looked like during the last Ice Age.

So after another three hour flight, we were back at Williams Field and
"home". I had a great time and was honored to be chosen to lead
others to have the same "first time" experience I had two years ago.
Someday, I would love to spend an extended period at the Pole. Maybe
a night. A summer? Maybe. A winter? Probably not. Whatever the
length of time, someday I plan to go back in some capacity. Maybe
Maybe more trips like this will be in my future.

Fill er Up

This week, the USNS Lawrence H. Gianella has
been in town, offloading the fuel needed to
keep McMurdo and South Pole running for the
next year.


This is probably the busiest time of the year
for the Fuels Department. They have to
organize the hose that will be attached to the
ship and be ultra-careful that there are no
leaks in the hose lines. This would create
an environmental disaster.


After the hoses are secured, they are attached
to the intakes at the other end of the Ice Pier.
This leads to a series of pipes that takes the
fuel to it's destinations (most typically large
round fuel tanks either near town or in the pass
between McMurdo and Scott Base). This year it
was discovered that there were 1 million gallons
of fuel too much on the ship. The reason this
occurred is that there weren't enough flights
to Pole this year to carry fuel. A LC-130 can
typically carry 3400 pounds of fuel and when you
cut back on the number of flights, that fuel has
to go somewhere. In this case, a fuel tank
inspector was sent down here from Christchurch to
re-certify several tanks that were no longer used.
Now that million extra gallons has a home. At
the price the program has to spend to bring fuel
down here, a very valuable home indeed.

The Big Roadtrip

You won't find this roadtrip in any Rand McNally Atlas.
There aren't any 7-11s along the road to stop for a
Big Gulp and bag of Fritos. It's the South Pole Traverse.
The group left McMurdo a couple of days after I got here in
late October and should be arriving in a few days at Pole.
This year they're hauling fuel and materials to both South
Pole and to the remote AGAP camps. Ultimately in years to
come, they want to be able to deliver up to 200,000 gallons
of fuel each year to the Pole but that will be years from
now. Currently, only LC-130's can carry fuel to the Pole
and they use up a lot of fuel in the process to get it
there. There's been some international angst against the
road, but let's get real here. It's not really "a road".
If it weren't maintained, it would be gone in only a few
years, it's existence gone forever. Plus, it's not like
tourists will be moseying along it. How could they? There
aren't any 7-11s along the way!


click on map to enlarge

Flight of the Bumblebee

The flight workhorse of the US Antarctic Program
has always been the LC-130 Hercules. This year,
the program is experimenting with a new kind of
Herc...The Bumblebee. It's just like every other
Herc, except it's propellers have eight blades
instead of the standard four. It's being tested
for it's viability in a number of conditions around
the world, including the polar conditions here.


The main reason that the Air Force is experimenting is
to see if they can increase the take-off performance of
the plane. It should provide more thrust at lower air
speeds. Since a large focus of the USAP is now headed
toward scientific study at remote field camps, they need
a plane that can take off and land in a relatively limited
space without an extra long runway. It could also increase
fuel efficiency by five percent and decrease maintenance
time.


Over the last few weeks, a few missions have taken off
and flown around the immediate area of Ross Island...
taking off from Williams Field and landing at Pegasus
Field and vice versa. Tomorrow's flight offers much
of the same. If the tests are successful, someday all
of our Hercs may be eight bladed.

Airbus A-319

The Intercontinental Aircraft Schedule (Subject to Changes)
was released today for the upcoming McMurdo Summer Season.
What excited me is that tentatively (yes, nothing is ever
written in stone), the last week of flights south and north
will be handled by the Airbus A-319. I've flown on a C-17,
LC-130, C-141, Coast Guard Dauphin Helicopter and turned
down the chance to fly in a Twin Otter while on the Ice, but
I think it will be great to fly in a plane out of here that
very few have gotten to travel in...Antarctic-wise.
The reason that I'm pretty confident that I'll get to fly on
the A-319 is that it will be flying the last 4 flights north
and since I'm a Air Services Rep this Summer, I'll be on one
of the last flights. This particular A-319 is owned and
operated by a company called SkyTraders out of Australia and
earlier this year, conducted the first official flight to the
Wilkins Aerodrome. A test flight was sent to McMurdo in 2007.
Again, this is all Subject to Changes, but if it happens, it
could make flying to the Ice a whole new experience.