Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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from the National Science Foundation, and a radio operator. The question is: can the aircraft get back out, without ex- cessive takeoff attempts P There is very little 'csidei' about who sits where. Capt Don Bursik, the Chief of Staff, with a hawklike profile, takes an un- comfortable folding chair in the shadows. The key figure is the slim young doctor, Lt Tim Cowan, who will command the winter- ing-over party. Yet the beauty of the operation is in its logistics, and Cdr Steve Kauffman, assistant chief of staff, in charge of con- struction, stakes out a high swivel stool for himself. Cdr 'cMoeN Morris, who is responsible for all aircraft as commanding officer of Squadron VX-6, explains that the initial flight will carry only 14,000 pounds payload and therefore no bulldozer. HI do think we ought to position a Traxcavator at the Pole, says Cdr Kauffman. The South Pole willbe the staging area, and he means that the bulldozer should be ready to be flown out to Plateau. uCan three men put up a Tamesway at that altitude ? '7 Arthur Weber wants to know. He is a civilian architect with the Navyis Bureau of Yards and Docks, who designed the vans and will fol- low them to the site. Since' people need oxygen at more than 15,000 feet, Plateau will be near the limits of endurance. Far left: USARP Hal Preston, U. S.WeatherBureau,at the South Pole. Twice a day he sends up balloons that transmit their weather data back to the station by radio, using radar to track them as they are blown by the wind. This work is not without its hazards. A balloon inflation shelter exploded at the Pole on January 31, T966. Luck- ily, no one was inside at the time. Ten SeaBees put up a new shelter in less than two weeks, relocating the re- lease door according to prevailing winds in order to al- low balloons to be released more easily. Lcdr Vince Law in the weather office at McMurdo. Lt Norm Terrell says, Right now, we're running about 90 percent - flights forecast and not aborted. He keeps a forecast verification chart that shows how successful the current forecasting has been. Getting the planes down safely is what we're interested in. He gets upper-layer reports from the balloons that are sent up twice a day, as well as daily reports from foreign stations on the ice. There is also a satellite that gives weather information, which is shared with the Russians and other nations. E WAY'

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- 'W ,,,, , ,, , '4He has the confidence of all the pilots - that's the most im- portant thing - and of his senior officers. Iwould say that any pilot he briefed would go or not go, on the basis of his forecast. Because they know his previous operation? Cdr Kranz is a meteorologist himself. HLast year, at the beginning of the season, he was aboard the Herc that flew from Punta Arenas, Chile, to McMurdo. That was a hairy one. He evaluated the weather in- formation and held the plane for twenty-four hours. Drummond now comes in the door, as Cdr Kranz goes over to the wardroom for a briefing on Plateau Station. HThe main thing is we were going west into the teeth of the windf, Drummond explains, Hwith no reporting stations west of there - clear to New Zealand. The biggest gap in the world, on the weather map, is between New Zealand and South America. We went over Palmer Peninsula 'for one photo run. We got 95 per- cent. The only reporting station on the way was Byrd. We went to Punta Arenas again, then three days later back to McMurdo - we diverted along the coast to take picturesf, uIt's a parlay, he goes on. c'For instance, youave got McMurdo and Byrd, and if you're taking out a field party to the Sentinels it means the weather has to be good at all three. If you have weather that is c0incz'a'em'aZb1 bad at both McMurdo and Byrd, you only lose so many hours, but if it's consecutivebz bad you lose twice as many. -You add on to this the availability of aircraft - say a plane is down for maintenance - and by the time the plane is perked up your weather is down. '6We get about twelve to seventeen reports in one synoptic period Qevery six hoursj - from the whole Continent. In the States there are four hundred, and they report hourly. Itis like using Chicago, Norfolk, and Kansas City - they 're about the same dis- tance -to forecast the weather in Washington, D.C. Every year it's getting harder, because the scientific parties are going farther out. At first, the traverses were near the coast, or close to Byrd or Pole. But, now, they want to get way out there, like forty people in the Pensacola Mountains, 1,100 miles from here. Take Plateau .... H The wardroom is a ramshackle sort of place. It's where the movies are shown, and a beat-up piano can be made out against a wall in the dim light. The officers who drift in represent all the main divisions of Deep Freeze, and are there to smooth out the wrinkles in a plan that originated a year ago in Washington. It will put eight humans in a new station far out on the ice, in an unexplored area, for two winters to report on weather, geo-mag- netism, aurora, and simply how they feel physically at 11,900 feet, 130 degrees below zero, and in six months of total darkness. Plateau Station will have four vans, 8V2 X SVQ x 36 feet, de- signed to fit inside a Herc, two small geo-magnetism buildings, and one emergency generator building, as well as three Iamesway huts. After an exploratory flight to determine the position of the station, flying at a constant altitude so as to detect any humps or hollows, the original plan is to 4' go in betweenthe 10th and 13th of December, with one knocked-down jamesway hut, three men 20

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Capt Don Bursik, Chief of Staff, is a humorous and pene- trating man. Deep Freeze has always maintained an informal relationship between the Navy and the U. S. Antarctic Research Program lUSARPl to allow greater flexibility in solving unusual problems, but Capt Bursik feels that in Deep Freeze '66 unit commanders were given even more autonomy. L'The weather here has interfered with practice drill, Cdr Kauffman answers. HEveryone concerned is going to be at the Pole for two weeks' acclimatizationf' Dr. Cowan reminds them. USO we take the jamesway to the Pole P asks Cdr Kauffman. HConna be a job for three men to get that jamesway upj' Lcdr John Bell agrees. He is in charge of Supply. 'iI'll go out with the first plane and stay until the second ar- rives,H says Cdr Kauffman. You let us know how many people, Cdr Morris puts in, 'iso we know what our payload can bef, c'The next event comes three days later when the Traxcavator can get in, Cdr Kauffman continues. I Wait, let's back up here a little bit,', drawls John Bell. He wants to know how many planes and on what dates. MI wouldn't envision that it would take fourteen thousand pounds of equipment to support three people, says Ken Moulton. He is the HUSARP repf, Qsenior scientist in the Antarctic for the United States Antarctic Research Programj. HI donit think you need two weeks to find the prevailing wind, says Dr. Cowan. 'iAll that food . . . stay out there in that awful place . . . unnecessary . . . might as well stay at the Pole. HThe Traxcavator will be the only thing you can get on that second ilightj, Lcdr Bell points out. HWhat's the consump on that Trax Pi' Lt Bob Miller of Public Works says it uses seven gallons per hour. 'iBoy, that's gonna be an awful lot of DFA. At the temperatures they expect in winter, Diesel Fuel Arctic, a kerosene, turns to jelly. MI've been talking to the Doctorf' says Charlie Roberts, a civilian with the U. S. Weather Bureau, 'cand everybody is going to take longer on everything, at that altitude. MTalk to some of those guys who went in the pressure cham- ber for thirty-six hoursf' Dr. Cowan nods. NThey turned purple . . . blue . . . panting . . . and everything else. Constant head- ache. They couldnit do any work. He looks around the room meaningfully. HThey were not acclimatizedf, HCan you find the ridge all right, Ken Moulton asks, Mor will we have to move the station P The ridge is at 790 30'S, 400 E. For medical and scientific records, they want to have the station at the highest possible point of the polar plat- eau. This is about the same height as the nearby 'iPole of Inac- cessibility,'7 set up by the Russians for a similar purpose but presently unoccupied. HHow long do we allow for preparing the skiway PM Cdr Kauffman wants to know. c'We better start after the first flight, says Capt Bursik. A week . . . subject to renegotiationf' Someone says the Trax- cavator moves at three miles per hour. 'iWe better have some way to survey that skiway, to make sure it's straight, Dr. Cowan suggests. He presses his point about the slowness of work at high altitude. c'We7re not going to be on duty twenty-four hours a day . . . maybe put 0116 H1016 man in theref' 22 l l l l l l 1 ! fl l l l l l P l f g