McMurdo Season 6 - Day 63

Current Weather - 23F Mostly Sunny Winds NE 10-20

So life is back to normal in McMurdo after my little side trip to South Pole.  Although not great for work, the extra few days at Pole were very enjoyable to get a better feel for the station.  Today I have some airfield photos for all of you.  Specifically Pegasus airfield, which will close permanently by the end of this week.  If I remember correctly Pegasus was constructed in the late '90's and has been the primary wheeled aircraft runway for many years.  However because the glacier that it is built on is moving north continuously the airfield has become downwind of Black Island, which gets it's name because of the lack of snowfall that accumulates there.  And because there is not a nice covering of snow on the dark volcanic rock, the winds pickup that dark dust and cover the ice shelf which then creates melt pools in the same place that we are trying to land aircraft.  Not good.

So, there is a new wheeled aircraft runway that has been built called Phoenix and when the jet aircraft come back at the end of the season they will begin operating out of the new airfield.

So, here is a day in the lift of Paula at Pegasus.

About 14 or so miles south of McMurdo is the location of Pegasus.  This allows for a nice vantage point to view Mt. Erebus.  McMurdo is next to one of those little black bumps at the bottom of the photo.

And here is the Lt's office at Pegasus.  One of two Renegade's, which are Ford F-550's with a track package added to them, and essentially a really big fire extinguisher mounted to the back.  For those of you firefighters out there, you won't find a pump anywhere on this thing (ok a power steering pump).  The fire package is two pressure vessels; one foam and one dry chemical; and then 4 high pressure air cylinders.  If you need to us agent you pressurize the system and the air pressure expels the product from the tanks.

And then there is the crew.  During C-17 flight operations, we bring 8 firefighters from town out to work the flight.  This is in addition to the 8 firefighters that are at Willy Field, and the 4 firefighters in town.  So, most of the people in this photo are actually working on their day off.  Pegasus flights get pretty old pretty quick when you are working most of your days off.

A good view of the ramp at Pegasus.  Here you can see the awaiting Ivan the Terra Bus as well as a Bassler DC-3 that is parked on the ramp.  The Bassler is great little aircraft for Antarctica due to it's extended range and medium cargo/passenger carrying capacity.

And then there is the monster, the C-17.  In the upcoming photos please use the people as a reference of scale to give you an ideas of how big this thing is.

Here are two more firefighting vehicles.  These are firefighting sleds, and there are three of them stationed at Pegasus.  Two of them are pulled by Tuckers which is the orange tracked vehicle on the right, and one is pulled by a Caterpillar Challeger which is on the left.  A little different than what most people think of when they think of a fire truck.

And here the flood gates have opened.  Another 100 people in McMurdo to slow down my internet and eat my freshies.  Sorry, I mean another 100 people to help science.

And again notice the size of the people to the the size of the wheels on the bus.

Now that all of the passengers are off of the C-17 cargo can go about offload and back loading the aircraft.

Heading onto the aircraft, these are the airline seat pallets that some people get to ride in.  This is a small passenger configuration, many times there are 20 rows of these seats.

Everyone else get to ride in the jump seats along the sides of the aircraft.  This view is looking back at the ramp.

Here you can see the interior body of the aircraft.  Again, note the size of the firefighter standing inside.

Looking at from front to back with the ramp closed.

And the last part of the tour is of the cockpit.  Firefighter regularly get to tour the planes while they are on the ground to familiarize themselves with the airframe and the controls in case they have to access the plane in an emergency.

So, enough about Pegasus.  The other night on the walk home from work I saw that there were some interesting clouds floating around the Royal Society Range, so I decided to go outside the dorm and grab some photos.

And while I was standing there, I heard a LC-130 in the distance.  And I got lucky and it was a southbound flight from Christchurch that was headed to Willy and decided to do a low pass, buzzing McMurdo.  And I was standing there with the zoom lens on the camera for once.  Finally a really nice shot.

That is all for now.  More to come soon.  And we are about 50% done with the season.  Amazing how quick the first half goes.
R.J.