Antarctic UAVs

Thursday 10 September 2026

Kara and I arrived in Antarctica a week ago, on Thursday September 3^rd. This is my 16^th trip to Antarctica. In my last blog post I said that Kara and I were scheduled to fly to Antarctica on August 27^th but as so often happens with Antarctic travel our flight was delayed due to bad weather in Antarctica. A multi-day storm was the cause for the initial delay followed by several more days to dig out the runway from all the drifted snow from the storm. I made the most of my extra time in New Zealand by riding my bike around Christchurch, strolling through the lovely botanic gardens and enjoying lots of good food.

                  We were relieved when we were finally told that our flight was scheduled to head to Antarctica on Thursday September 3^rd, a week and half later than our originally scheduled flight date. I always like to have a good meal the night before I fly to Antarctica and this year I had an excellent steak dinner at the Carlton Bar & Steakhouse on my last night in Christchurch.

                  I checked out of my Christchurch hotel, my home for the last 13 days, at 6AM last Thursday to head to the airport for my flight to Antarctica. When I arrived at the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) passenger terminal, at the Christchurch airport, I picked up the cold weather gear that I had tried on and left at the USAP facility more than a week ago. For Antarctic flights we are required to wear our winter boots, wind pants and big red parka as well as have a hat, gloves and googles with us. It is too much clothing for the relatively warm departure in Christchurch but it is very welcome when you step off the plane in Antarctica.

Here I am 32 years ago, with my colleague and friend Mark Seefeldt, waiting in the same passenger terminal for my first flight to Antarctica in 1994. Seems like I always have a soda in my hand before flying to Antarctica.

Kara and I spent our first few days in mandatory meetings and training sessions covering everything from trash sorting and recycling to how to protect yourself from cold weather injuries like frostbite and hypothermia. Given that the temperature has mostly been below -25 F since we arrived with wind chills down to -75 F knowing how to avoid cold weather injuries is a must down here.

On our first day in the Crary laboratory building, where we work in McMurdo, we were relieved to see that our science cargo and drones had arrived before us this year. 

We did a few drone flights two days ago but haven’t been able to fly since then due to stormy, windy weather. In my next blog post I’ll share some more details about our drones and how we’ll be using them to do our research.

Thanks for reading.