Quote: "You will excuse my ignorance of Antartic operations but .. it doesn't require aircraft to fly in pairs?
EoR"
It does seem sensible to operate in pairs, here are some considerations;
If operating from a vessel with a single heli deck (two hangars) then one heli would need to launch and loiter until the second one is ranged and launced, this would require a lot of fuel and time. The process would have to be reversed for the recovery - thus not always practical.
There is a question about sending two helis into bad weather as a pair, when do they loose sight of each other? if the one crashes due to Wx the other is surely also at peril?
There may only be room for one heli on the vessel.