Flying To McMurdo Station
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Back on October 7th, after a weather delay. We were able to get off the ground in Christchurch. There are no guarantees even when you are within range of landing at McMurdo that the flight will not "boomerabg" back to Christchurch if the flight ops determines it unsafe to land. So there is the possibility of an 11hr round trip for nothing. In this picture is a place called the CDC or Clothing Distribution Center where we pickup our ECW ( they love acronyms) Extreme cold weather gear. Then we go through normal airport type security minus the no fluids in your carry-on bit.
We are now through security and on to what looks like a prision bus that drives us through a security area and on to the airport grounds. As you can see we are approaching our ride to Antarctica the mighty C-17 Globe Master III. These are big planes capable of carrying 171,000 lbs. That is equivalent to over 100 African elephants. It is 174 feet long and has a 174 foot wing span. Four engines provide 161,600 lbs of thrust which gets it off the ground amazingly quick. The C-17s total max take off weight can be 585,000 lbs! And it flys at 450 knots cruise speed. So we are in McMurdo in about 5.5hrs after take-off.
Inside this cargo giant all 21 of us took up position on either the side jump seats along the side of the aircraft or the standard seat positions where the military put in additional/conventional seats in front of the cargo as you can just see here. I like the jump seats as there are outlets for one to plug in a laptop. The plane is from the 62nd Airlift wing out of McChord AFB WA. The Military calls it Operation Deep Freeze. So we are on our way.
As you can see there is enough room in here that if there were no cargo we could get a good game of foot ball going. I think they might have some saftey concerns with this idea though. I think football at 30,000 feet would be cool!
If you get tired, just lay out on the nice cold aluminum floor. Hey, it is still better than coach class on a commercial airline.
I can't believe we landed in the weather we did. It surprised may that the plane made it in and did not turn around. The pilots are truely amazing and safe. Yet everything was clear as we were 10 minutes out then just as we were on final approach a storm blew in rapidly, almost instantaneously. When we got off the plane it was hard to stand and the visibility was limited to about 50 yards at best. It was a balmy -35 outside..
Usually this shot shows the magnificant Royal Society Mountain range behind the plane, but with the storm it is hard to see past it 50 feet.
What a cool walk through of the process of getting down there. I've heard you describe it many times but still feel like I understand it better now. Crazy about that storm! I am glad they made it in safe.
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