A couple of flight delays left us with an extra night in Christchurch. I was grateful for the extra time and slept hard. Our aircraft was changed to a LC-130 Hercules, a ski-equipped version of the classic 4-turboprop workhouse of military aviation. We were given the first of many briefings, boarded the LC-130, and like a squad of paratroopers, we strapped into the steel-frame fabric jump seats along the walls. The big engines fired up with a shuddering roar, and it was all one-syllable conversations after that.
Our cargo was strapped on the rear ramp of the aircraft, leaving abundant real estate for moving around. I was happy to spend hours checking out the interesting equipment, mechanical systems, and placards in the cargo hold. Glimpses out through the porthole-like windows revealed an ocean surface peppered with floating ice.
In one of the best decisions I ever made, I asked a crewmember if I could visit the cockpit. From the dark cavern of the cargo hold, I climbed up a short ladder into the brilliant, all-glass cockpit. Windows stretched from from overhead to down below the pilots' feet and a tolerable thrum replaced the heavy drone of the engines. Behind the two pilots, a flight engineer monitored flight mechanical systems. With practiced speed and precision, he stood, extended his reach to a vast overhead switch panel and efficiently adjusted the engine fuel source to improve the plane's trim, while maintaining his scalding coffee below the rim of its paper cup. He was pleased to inform me that we no longer had sufficient fuel to abort back to New Zealand, and that our landing on Antarctica was inevitable. Near a pair of cots in the back of the cockpit, the navigator was looking over paper charts of our flight path and viewing sweeps from the nose-cone radar. He showed me how he could adjust the angle and range of the radar, and we were able to pick up returns from an island group, then identify the islands on the paper chart. Pretty darn useful. When I asked him to estimate our range from the mainland continent, he unfolded his chart, whipped out a draftman's compass and a round slide ruler, made some careful calculations, and about 60 seconds later, informed me that we were 250 miles out. He took his time to answer my question as best he could. Partway through these conversations, a young guardsman jumped up through the floor entry and asked me, “Want a mocha?” A few moments later, he was shaking the last of a hot cocoa packet into a cup of coffee and I had a delicious, scalding beverage.
Sure, it's no surprise that a cockpit navigator would exert a professional level of effort in answering a navigation question. And of course the guardsman only made me a drink after everyone else in the cockpit was already enjoying their mochas. But I sure felt honored to be up there drinking my mocha and talking to those guys. Returning to the body of the aircraft, I didn't feel so much like cargo.
Our first view of Antarctica was stunning. Through the tiny porthole, we peered down at heavy glaciers laid out over the sharp peaks of the Transantarctic Mountains. Unlike the bare, rock-streaked, receding glaciers of Alaska and the Rockies, the Antarctic glaciers we saw were massive and advancing. I saw almost no glacial ice, only the snow-covered glacier surface, contorted by glacial flow.
After some great views of sea ice and small bergs, we strapped back in for landing. Now, without any view to the exterior, we relied for orientation on our sense of balance and the sounds of the aircraft. As we banked, I traced the movement of a few spots of light admitted by the rear portholes. The aircraft underwent powerful yaws and what felt like two banked turns, and then, when least I expected, our skis touched down and we ground to a stop. Riding inside the cargo hold, the sound was like a plow down scraping down a snowpacked road. As we taxied on the ice sheet, the cargomaster lowered the rear hydraulic ramp, and we were struck with brilliant white light and cold whips of Antarctic air.
Thanks to Pat Brown for taking all the photos in this post!
