Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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Welcome to Antarctica can be ironic, when new arrivals land on a bitter day with blowing snow. This pleasant scene may change in five minutes. At the South Pole there is rarely much wind, even in winter, but cold katabatic winds flow almost uniformly down to the coasts from the center of the Continent. When they become gusty, they produce strange local 'lblizzards, with no falling snow. The sky may even be blue overhead. Far right: The Strip, with Ross Island in background, look- ing approximately north. At extreme left lnot visible herel is New Zealand's Scott Base and behind it McMurdo Station, or the Hill, as it is called to distinguish it from the Strip. Out of sight to the right is Cape Crozier, with several of the most important rookeries of both the Emperor and the Adelie penguin. For several seasons the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory has been work- ing on a snow-compacted runway that would allow an LC- l30F to land on wheels ata maximum weight of l35,000 pounds. lf successful, it would be safe from the vagaries of fluctuating ice conditions. follows the ruts made by the heavy D-8 tractors. When he reach- es the Cast-West avenue on the edge of the Strip, he tacks upwind toward a uWannigan or van full of electronics equipment. Once the door is closed, he is exhausted. It is about the size of a long bedroom. On a bench is a TACAN Qnavigational aidj receiver and a simulated set of instru- ments, exactly as they appear in the aircraft. TACAN is what the pilot sees, whereas GCA CGround Control Approachj shows the plane itself to a man on the ground who talks it down. This is test and training equipment. The main part is made up of a bank of i'drawers like cigar boxes, each one crammed with circuitry. There is a malfunction somewhere. Gary Watkins, a radioman, traces the trouble to one of the drawers and pulls it out, thus avoiding having to tear the whole thing down. Someone pities the poor crews on the weather ships. It is about time for service exams and, since they are being held all over the world on the same day, those on picket duty who aspire to a higher rating are enjoying a 40-degree roll, seasickness, headaches, and so on. It isn't fair. Everybody else is sitting in a comfortable room. Why canit he take it when he gets ashore? Andersen explains that it is to prevent the possibility of the exams being compromised. john Hesse is working the single sideband fshort wavej. On this little radio he can talk around the world. He doesnit seem impressed. HAdmiral Byrd could do it thirty years agof, The avionics chief is Glenn Hunt, who wintered-over at McMurdo in 1962. The Strip of course was not in operation, but he was not idle. That winter, he and Claude i'BuddyH English, who is now in helos, built the entire electronics set-up for Air Development Squadron Six QVX-6D on the Hill. The equipment fills the room, which shakes from the force of the storm. Andersen says that, as an AT1QAviation Electronics Technician, first classj, he is required to know it all: radar and electronics as well as his ordinary Navy duties. HThe first school I went 'to was forty-two weeks. As people do in a snug pl2LCC, they begin talking about how miserable it is outside. Red,' Aux- ford has been working, until today, on a Goon with a hOt magneto. This is the venerable DC-3 of civil aviation. As the P1aUC,S mechanic and ucaptainf' he is expected to fix it on the deck, with the wind up his pants even in good weather. SiI1CC nobody does only one job, Dick Simmons, the plane's radioman, gives him a hand. Whenever he is at the Strip, i'Red also has 8 Hg0PhC1 ' to help him, Cunningham, who is training to become a mechanic. I6 ii?

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in five minutes, slaloming between the flags that mark the safe ice. When they found out how good it was, they took it back, says Woody Hill, another teller of tall tales and a fine mechanic. The serious man at the table is Dick Andersen, who is a career counselor as well as an expert radioman. Because most of the Deep Freeze people are screened volunteers, and the way to get ahead is by advancing in rate through technical study, they listen to him. His words are convincing, since he wintered-over in 1962 and thought enough of the ice to return. He is proud of his long flights in the ancient HC-oons QLC-47X 117 Dakotasjtg of the field parties they serve, and, above all, of the continuity of his experi- ence here, which leads him to more and more understanding. He gets the connection between an apparently arbitrary scientific proj- ect and the fact that it depends on the Navy - on him. Andersen gets up to leave. Here, as everywhere on the ice, they work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Outside, it is no longer like New England. The Antarctic is as dry as a desert - in fact is classified as one - and the cold and the wind grind the snow to a fine powder. It is not the same as occasional snow falling on warm earth, it is aeons old. After the sun has loosened the snow, the blizzards come shouting in, as Byrd put it, filling the air with drift. Although blinded, Andersen A Herc on the skiway. Williams Field was named for a driver who died when his tractor tell through the ice in the first year of Deep Freeze. Some of the' vans contain- ing communications equipment can be seen at right. ln l960, all flights between New Zealand and McMurdo had to be cancelled when sunspots knocked out radio com- munications for eight days in a row. Radio reliability' used to be about 50 percent, but with a new type of antenna it is now about 90 percent. 4' , K .

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