Out of Antarctica

Well, I've been back in the States for well over a week, need to finish up my Antarctica blog postings a touch off of real-time. I'm going to blame the SOPA protests for the latest of these entries.

To fly away, we first caught a Herc from the South Pole up to McMurdo. The flight was a day late due to mechanical problems with another Herc the day before. In this shot we're just landed in McMurdo, and the plane is being onloaded. The ski-do will take away the pee jar from the plane.

Hours later, our next ride comes into town. A C-17 air force transport bringing people and gear into McMurdo, and will take us north to New Zealand by morning.

Good-sized crowd of folks waiting for the plane out. Including some people who had been expelled from the continent for bad behavior. Long story...

Cargo on our flight included this prop blade assembly for a Herc. There wasn't an obvious problem with it... And in the foreground some biological and water samples marked "do not freeze" and "keep refrigerated." They were...

Partway through the five hour, 35 degree F, airplane flight. Folks hiding and trying to sleep in their parkas. But green, warm, damp New Zealand awaits!

South Pole Departure

Well, our first flight attempt out of here was yesterday. The plane took off from McMurdo heading for Pole, turned around and landed. They had a cracked windshield, possibly caused by a bird strike on takeoff. Penguins don't fly, so that was probably a skua.

This morning the flight was canceled due to bad weather in McMurdo. But there's a new scheduled flight for dinner time tonight that might work!

Once I'm back to the land of reliable internet, will post pictures from the last few days. And answer the last batch of questions I got. Look for that soon!

I did want to link two excellent articles from the New York Times for the Amundsen 100th anniversary of the achievement of the Pole which also highlight the modern Antarctica. Article and editorial.

In the cockpit

This is in the cockpit of the C-17 (Globemaster) enroute from Christchurch to McMurdo. They let the passengers up to the cockpit one or two folks at a time. The US Air Force flight crews don't have to follow civil aviation rules, and are quite friendly in general.

The cockpit is a mix of modern, glass instrumentation and big olive drab levers and buttons.

View out of the side of the cockpit window, broken sea ice on the approach to McMurdo. This was probably 30-40 minutes, maybe 200-300 miles, out of arrival.

The overhead panels was a solid wall of olive drab and black buttons and indicators.

Open water channel quite a ways from McMurdo still.

McMurdo arrival

So, you've flown from home all the way to Christchurch on the south island of New Zealand, felt saddened by the earthquake damage, been issued your ECW (EXTREME Cold Weather) clothing, and flown on a load, crowded military transport for hours. Now what?

Well, you hop off the plane into the brilliant sunlight (sunshine plus reflected sunlight off of all of that ice), feel some wind and surprisingly warm air (it is Antarctica, but it's summer, you're on the coast, and it's probably around 20-25F). What's next?

A slog of bureaucracy. Load up and go to the NSF Chalet HQ and hear about safety, recycling, rules, regulations, changes in the rules, and then you explain what you want to do when you leave Antarctica (for the travel office) and then you get a room key. Drop your stuff off in the room, go to the laundry facility and get some sheets, drop off the sheets, find some food. Then your bags arrive on the base and you go haul those off to your room.

And for those of us heading on to Pole, we turn our bags back over to the cargo folks, get ourselves weighed again, and prepare for another flight. Hopefully the next morning.

From the C-17 cockpit

As a nice treat, we got to go up into the cockpit of the C-17 enroute down to the ice.

Went up there once in the middle of the flight and then again later as we were crossing the ice sheet (see previous entry for some photos).