Jan 2nd – Day 4 on Ice

Today was the Fabled Day. The Pole flight was scheduled, bags were dragged, weather was clear and transport was set for 7:30am. I woke up at 6:30am, packed up my remaining items, took the sheets off of my bed, and ate a quick breakfast before making my way up to the loading dock where we were loaded into a 1970’s era Delta transport vehicle.

These Delta’s are particularly un-enjoyable to ride in, since you’re pretty much cantilevered over the gigantic back wheel in a stiff steel shell. It’s like riding in the back of a rollercoaster, except it doesn’t go very fast. Apparently someone who wasn’t wearing their seatbelts was catapulted out of their seat and hit their head on the ceiling, causing some serious damage… not sure why you wouldn’t wear a seatbelt in one of these bad boys… anyway, the Delta schlepped us the 7 miles out to the airfield (which takes about an hour), where we were taxied up to the LC-130 for boarding.

Everything was going smooth… too smooth. We took off even slightly before our 9:00am flight time and were on our way to Pole! This had been the smoothest flight situation I’ve ever had on my way to/from Pole. Everyone was feeling confident that we would make it to Pole by lunch.

One nice thing about the LC-130 flights is that we can get up and stand around the cargo bay. There are portholes along the bay that you can stand next to and  look out. I like to stand there and look out as we cross the trans-Antarctic mountains. The flight path basically takes us up the Ross Ice Shelf for the first hour, then across the TA mountains for the next hour, and finally across the Antarctic Plateau for the final hour – which ain’t much to look at.

We had crossed the TA mountains and were flying over the Plateau (i.e. nothing but white, flatness to look at) so I had decided to just stand in the cargo area. At this point we were definitely less than an hour out from Pole, so I was just waiting for the loadmaster to tell me to sit down for landing… unfortunately, I noticed the two loadmasters talking back and forth for a couple minutes, and going up into the flight deck.

I then felt the all-too-familiar feeling of a wide U-turn. The sun’s illumination path arcing across the cargo bay confirmed my suspicions… We had boomeranged. One of the loadmasters then told me that we had turned around because there was a crack in the windshield. I wasn’t too surprised because I had heard about windshield cracks at least a few times in the past, but I was really upset that we were so close to Pole, and had to turn around.

Whenever mechanical problems occur during flight, the default is to return to the place of most-availability. Meaning that there is a maintenance crew, and supplies in McMurdo which don’t exist at Pole, so risking a full-on break of the windshield during landing at Pole would mean that another flight would have to fly in supplies and mechanics, and that would be too risky and costly. I also heard a story that last year a C17 arriving at McMurdo to early in the season had boomeranged DURING IT’S DECENT INTO MCMURDO!!! -also because of a cracked windshield. That means that everyone on the ground waiting to get out (like the winterovers who thought this was their flight out) had to watch this plane come into the airspace, and turn around right over their heads. At least the C17s are faster than the C-130s so it only takes 5 hours to go CHC-MCM, but still… that’s just brutal.

On the bright side, I got to see the TA mountains again, and I took some nice videos of us flying over top of some mountain ranges and glaciers… I don’t know if I’ll be able to upload them anytime soon, but keep an eye out. Really, a boomerang going to Pole isn’t that bad since it’s only 3 hours, and you get to see the mountains and glaciers, but the thing that sucks is that that usually means a 24 hour delay, which means transporting an hour back to MCM in the Delta, and then doing it all over again the next morning.

Now we just sit around until tomorrow morning. Flight time is basically the same as today, so a 24hr delay. I’d assume we’re not using the same plane, since there are multiple LC-130s on continent, but I don’t really know the turnaround time on that specific windshield (or any mechanical fix for that matter).

At least it’s Yankee Night over at Scott Base (the Kiwi base 3miles from McMurdo). It’s the one night a week where the Americans are allowed at the Kiwi base, and are invited to hang out at their bar.

Update:

Our flight tomorrow (ZSP040) has been set as a backup to the WAIS Divide flight. WAIS stands for Western Antarctic Ice Shelf. So basically if the weather is nice at WAIS Divide, they will fly those folks there, otherwise if weather is nice at Pole they’ll fly us. So we have to wake up for a 6:30am transport to check which case is happening.

Also – Yankee night was canceled 😦 boo.