Dispatches from Antarctica: All Hail the Ski-Bird

The first LC-130 arrives at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the 2010-2011 season.

Lumbering from New Zealand to Antarctica at roughly half the airspeed of its gigantic wheels-only US Air Force cousin, this most muscular of the world's ski-planes holds its own on the snow and ice. If Antarctic aviation is a full-contact team sport, then the LC-130 makes a good case to be its most valuable player at McMurdo. And the men and women who fly, maintain, and enable this science support mission live up to that challenge each and every season.

The 109th Airlift Wing, New York Air National Guard, has been maintaining and flying LC-130s in Antarctica since 1988. They've been operating ski-planes on the Arctic and Greenlandic icecaps since 1975. Since the Navy left Operation Deep Freeze in the late 1990s, no other flying organization has maintained the continuity, skilled workforce, safety record, and sheer ability to survive and operate in polar regions as have the 'Raven Gang' of the 109th.

Many long-time McMurdo participants view the arrival of this first of many LC-130s, as the sentimental start of the 2010-2011 US Antarctic Program austral summer season.

Many thanks to Major David Panzera, 109AW Plans Office, for providing video footage of the LC-130.

Check out the Dispatches from Antarctica series on DoD's Armed with Science blog: http://go.usa.gov/a0o.

For more DoD science and technology, visit http://science.dodlive.mil.

See more DoD videos at http://www.dodvclips.mil.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• aviation
• plane
• military
• air force
• defense
• dod
• nsf
• science
• national science foundation
• research
• flight warfare vehicle

[kinsley2108]

Nice touch in the end there with Christchurch.

[kinsley2108]

@alexythimia7 No, resources are off limits. There's an international treaty.

[alexythimia7]

is there an international battle for resources there?

[monacomon09]

@dooooooer They're used for the National Science Foundation...I live near the base and I help them out occasionally with guarding their aircraft at airshows.

[dooooooer]

thats Cool but what is the use of landing on Antarctica? i mean there is no war there