{"id":746,"date":"2025-09-06T18:52:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T18:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/?p=746"},"modified":"2025-09-06T18:52:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T18:52:45","slug":"antarctica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/2025\/09\/06\/antarctica\/","title":{"rendered":"Antarctica"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After a 2 week delay Kara and I finally made it to Antarctica on Friday September 5th<\/sup>. On Thursday we received an e-mail from the US Antarctic Program telling us that we were scheduled to fly south the following day and that we needed to get to the Christchurch airport by 6:45AM Friday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we arrived at the airport we went to the Antarctic clothing distribution center, where we had tried on our cold weather gear a couple of weeks ago. Our big orange duffel bags, filled with our cold weather gear, were waiting for us there. For the flight to Antarctica you are required to wear much of this gear \u2013 the heavy winter boots, wind pants, parka, gloves, hat and face mask. Much of this I wore over my regular clothes \u2013 jeans and a T-shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"John
Here I am just before we boarded our flight to Antarctica. You can see everyone wearing their required cold weather gear. During New Zealand summer it can be pretty uncomfortable wearing all these heavy layers of clothes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next, we had to split whatever cold weather gear we weren\u2019t going to wear on the flight and whatever else we were bringing to Antarctica into checked luggage and a \u201cboomerang\u201d bag. If our flight was cancelled before taking off or returned to Christchurch after taking off, known as a boomerang flight, then we\u2019d only get our boomerang bag back with the rest of our checked luggage remaining on the plane. That means that you need to pack your boomerang bag so it contains everything you would need for a few extra days in Christchurch. No one wants to spend several days in Christchurch walking around in nothing but winter boots and cold weather gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once everything was packed as either checked luggage, in the boomerang bag or in a carry on bag we went next door to the Antarctic passenger terminal to check in for our flight, just like you\u2019d do for a regular commercial flight. Here our checked luggage was weighed and security screened. We could check as many bags as we wanted but the total weight had to be less than 85 pounds. For people spending 6 or more months in Antarctica this weight limit can be tough to meet. We also got our boarding passes, which was just a laminated number on a chain we could wear around our neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"Line
The line to check in and check luggage at the Antarctic Passenger Terminal at the Christchurch airport for our C-17 flight south. It was an almost one hour wait to get through this line.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We then had a bit of time to wait before boarding our flight. Many people walked to a nearby grocery store to buy some snacks for the flight or even to buy some fresh fruit to bring to Antarctica, since fresh food is in short supply there. Before boarding our flight we were given a safety briefing about the C-17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, we boarded a bus that drove us to an apron next to one of the runways at the Christchurch airport where the C-17 was parked. As we climbed the steps into the plane everyone was given a bagged lunch \u2013 there is no in-flight service on the C-17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"Boarding
Passengers boarding a US Air Force C-17 transport plane. Next stop, hopefully, is Antarctica in about 5 hours.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is no mistaking a military transport plane for a regular commercial airliner. The cavernous inside is designed to haul cargo and troops. Our flight was configured to carry mainly passengers \u2013 there were more than 100 people on my flight. It is very loud inside the plane so you need to wear hearing protection or noise cancelling headphones during the flight. No need to worry about the person sitting next to you talking to you while you try to watch your favorite show on your tablet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"Inside
Inside the C-17 on our flight to Antarctica on Friday. Notice that everyone is wearing hearing protection of some kind.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"C130
While the C-17 isn\u2019t the most comfortable plane to fly on it is much better than the smaller C-130, shown here, where passengers sit facing each other knee to knee. In addition to being less comfortable a flight to Antarctica on a C-130 takes about 8 hours while the flight on a C-17 takes 5 hours.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After 4.5 hours of flying the plane began its descent to the Phoenix ice runway outside of McMurdo Station. With a smooth landing and long deceleration on the slippery ice surface we finally came to a stop. Cold air rushed into the plane as the rear cargo hatch was opened letting us know that we were definitely not in New Zealand anymore. It is always an exciting moment when you step out of the dark plane and into the expansive view of Antarctic ice and mountains. For us, our flight landed just before sunset, so the entire landscape was bathed in a beautiful golden light. And the weather was pleasant by late Antarctic winter standards. The sky was clear, the wind was light and the temperature was a relatively mild -10 F. I couldn\u2019t have asked for a better arrival to the frozen continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kara
Kara on the Phoenix ice runway next to the C-17. Welcome to Antarctica!!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Antarctic
The sun setting on an almost perfect Antarctic winter day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"C17
The C-17 is a big plane but it is small under the immense sky and terrain of Antarctica.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Upon exiting the plane a fleet of vans was waiting to take us on the 40 minute drive to McMurdo. Once we arrived on station we had a 30 minute in-brief orienting us to life in McMurdo. By then it was dinner time so our next stop was the galley, where we\u2019ll be eating all our meals for the next month. After dinner it was a short walk to the luggage handling building to pick up our checked luggage and a stop by the laundry to get clean linens for our beds.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll be spending the next several days completing lots of required training. We also need to wait for our science cargo to arrive before we can begin doing our research drone flights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a 2 week delay Kara and I finally made it to Antarctica on Friday September 5th. On Thursday we received an e-mail from the US Antarctic Program telling us that we were scheduled to fly south the following day and that we needed to get to the Christchurch airport by 6:45AM Friday morning. Once… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2025\/09\/c17_ice_runway-1.jpeg","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-01 22:01:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":749,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions\/749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/antarcticuavs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}