Four Family in Antarctica.
Luke, Luci, Joel, Jesse: For those of you who don’t know us. Joel was
supposed to be on the opening flight to South Pole this morning but the
forecast for McMurdo was bad. Pole was holding steady at the -50F; the
minimum for an LC-130 Hercules to land there. The concern for the flight
were not the conditions at Pole but that the conditions at McMurdo would go
down before they could get back.
But the polies did get some relief with the arrival of Kenn Boreck Air from
Canada. KBA operates the smaller Twin Otter aircraft that we do a lot of
work in the Deep Field with. They fly down between six and eight aircraft
every year to work with various different programs including, the Italian,
French, and Patriot Hills. They actually depart from Calgary and fly down
through the Americas to the British base at Rothera where they swap their
wheels for skis. Then they cross the Antarctic via the South Pole where they
are often the first plane they have seen since February.
This year KBA added a re-modeled Bassler DC-3 to their fleet. It stopped to
refuel at Pole yesterday before continuing on to McMurdo. Coincidently, it
is very similar to the first planes use the open the first US base there
back in the 50s. A couple of hours later the first Twin Otter, BBV, arrived
at South Pole Station and is currently on weather hold like all the other
aircraft down here at the moment.
Since the planes are on hold, it obviously means the passengers are also on
hold. This includes my brother Joel who is quickly losing patients with his
accommodations here at McMurdo. He is crammed in a transient room with
about 30 other polies and has “pillow like a piece of cardboard”. We are
all concerned about how he is going to take living at pole. Now that I have
finished with my obligatory training I am going to take him around McMurdo
and show him some of the highlights.
Since Luci and I are scheduled to put in by Bassler, the South Pole flight
delays haven’t started to affect us too much yet. But, if bad weather here
keeps up the delays just keep backing up the whole flight calendar.
Luke
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