Australian Antarctic aircraft stranded for 3 days

[Horatio Leafblower]

I am surprised this one hasn't been reported here... espec as there is a strong chance one of those stranded in a PPRuNer of some renown... :}

Stranded Aussies aim for home base
From: AAP
January 16, 2006

THREE Australians stranded for nine days on a remote Antarctic ice shelf are hoping to return to their base today.

The two male pilots and a female air support worker, from Australia's Davis Station, were sent to the Amery Ice Shelf on January 5 to retrieve equipment from a US weather balloon.
The trio became stranded about 740km from Davis when their CASA 212 aircraft could not take off.

Bad weather hampered efforts to reach the group last week but engineers reached the site on Friday.

The group arrived at Beaver Lake, about halfway to Davis station, yesterday.

A spokeswoman for the Australian Antarctic Division said today the crews were expected to fly out around lunchtime (AEDT) and arrive in Davis this afternoon.


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"The weather was okay for them to come yesterday but they were just tired," she said.
The trio was well equipped throughout the ordeal and had set up camp with tents and heaters until help arrived.

[Woomera]

Horatio Leafblower

:ok:

It's been on my mind since it was first reported, odds on it will be or I'm sure we would have heard about it.

An all expenses paid holiday at Beaver Lake in Sunny Antartica sounds like a fun gig to me. :}

Been keeping close tabs on them just never got around to posting.

Very professional outfit with very professional crews.:D

[tipsy2]

You can bet if HE was one of those stuck down there he'll have a good excuse for not telling us all about it.

Something like no internet or some other truely believable story.:cool:

tipsy:ok:

[Dog One]

Good excuse to keep the APU running!

[the wizard of auz]

Hey guy, I'll be expecting some good pics in my next email. :}

[tipsy2]

The two male pilots and a female air support worker

Kinky:ooh: , I'd love to see the photo's as well.:D

tipsy:ok:

[Horatio Leafblower]

Tipsy

It occurred to me that he is just the sortof guy that would get into that sort of situation!

Hypothermia is a killer you know.... :rolleyes:

[NNB]

they couldn't take off because they "stuffed" an under cart ski. Engineers went in via 2 x squirrells. CASA's might be to soft for the job perhaps twotters would be a more robust alternative...Hmm

[compressor stall]

Not me! I sunned it up at Club Beaver :E for a week 190nm from the action.

RH ski dumped its hydraulics on takeoff causing it to retract. The drag of the wheel in the snow was then too much to allow take off at 8800' elevation. A pretty simple situation really. Once everything was ready, mother nature intervened for a week - par for the course down here. Somehow the media got hold of it and beat it up bigger than ben hur - judging by the number of emails in my inbox!

Most ski failures on Twin Otters and C130s (they have them too) have happened on takeoff. It is an occupational hazard down here. With Vr of 95kts, work out the TAS for the 8800' elevation :ooh: and you start to realise how tough it is down here on gear taking off over rough rock hard irregular sastrugi. They cop a flogging.

[Pee Three]

Hey stallie how is jls by the way, heard through the grapevine that he was camping out with a busted aircraft!! Sure beats getting stuck on the ground at say...Warmun or Tjuntjunjarra for a couple of days, bit cooler too! I reckon with experiences like that he won't be in a hurry to get back to the RUFDUS slog?
Anyway say g'day to him for me, probaly after he's finished dancing on the table...!!??

cheers Pee Three

[blueloo]

Compressor stall, we dont want the facts! _ We just want to know if the girl was a good sort, and are their any pics! :E :E

[Kickatinalong]

I'm with you Blueloo, BUT, that far from home she could NOT be ugly.
Kickatinalong:ok:

[d_concord]

NNB,

Having flown both types in the early 80's I can assure you there is nothing soft about a 212. They are built like the proverbial! I'd back one in against a twotter any day for strength. They do however do very different jobs although you can do most things with a CASA that you would do with a twotter but not the other way around.

CS, how are they going down there? Always will have a soft spot for one even if they made me deaf. Is your chief pilot down south?

I understand the women get 5 bonus point just stepping ashore!

[Spinnerhead]

AND another 2 points for a foreign accent!

Yeah Baby!

[Loadmaster]

Does anyone know which aircraft it was (name).

Thanks

[The Voice]

Well Stallie, at least your still around .. just a bit too busy to post these days?

[compressor stall]

Hi Voice :ok:

Still lurking around.... How's things with you in your not so new any longer part of the world?

Pee Three JLS says hi back! I might see you over there midyear for a month or two, who knows....?

CS

[The Voice]

ahhh Stallie, you know how it is .. a little bit of JetA1 in your veins from time to time kinda keeps that pay packet coming in! :E

[Woomera]

Now stallie your cousins in northern climes are dying to hear about the day to day in the life of an Antarctic pilot, even piccies if you have the time and bandwidth.:ok:

It'll keep us cool in the 40C days and green with envy in our day jobs, a public service you see :cool:

Seriously, only if you have the time and equipment.;)

Woomera

[compressor stall]

TAF DAVIS 260200Z 0314 04022G32KT 9999 -SN FEW015 FEW060 OVC090
FM12 05030KT 9999 -SN FEW010 SCT020 BKN060
INTER 1214 2000 SN FEW008 BKN010
FM03 MOD TURB BLW 3000FT
T 01 02 01 00 Q 982 982 982 983
REMARKS: HORIZON AND SURFACE DEFN FAIR, TENDING POOR IN SNOW

Beach cricket cancelled and moved indoors. Forecast to get worse on Saturday..... :eek:

As for life and flying, down here, there was a five page spread in last July's Australian Aviation. The scenery and the scale of this place is incredible and it is a real privilege to see this part of the world. Having seen the scale and emptiness of this place, you realise that the GAFA back home isn't all that big after all.

Summer's over now, and things are cooling off noticibly and the weather is turning - the first blizz of the year will hit here on Saturday. The sun set for the first time 10 days ago, although not long enough to be proper dark. That's next month!

[NAMPS]

Hmmm...The chances of stallie putting up with a heatwave conditions or having to fight bushfires are pretty slim...:ok:

[gaunty]

Thanks stallie

T 01 02 01 00 sounds positively balmy to me.:cool:

[Pee Three]

Stallie thanks for the message, so you maybe thinking of doing a bit of relieving for RUFDUS when back in Oz?? God knows we need all the help we can get!! MB will probaly snap you up in a heartbeat, however if you have any better options I'd be looking elsewhere....this job is becoming more and more of a slog and still no more resources in sight, in fact we are battling to keep our numbers at the present levels.
Anyway good to see JLS is safe and well after his ordeal, hope he still has a sense of humour and I bet he is just itching to get back and do a JT-BUN-JT say....a couple of hundred times??
ciao Pee Three

[bellsux]

So are there still tins of Tom Piper Steak and Kidney and Golden Circle Pinapple Juice leftover from the 1960's around the Apples at Beaver Lake camp? We cracked a few tins open around ten years ago and they seemed to still be ok then.

[Towering Q]

Stallie, just a query regarding that Davis TAF. I notice that a fresh NE wind seems to be the order of the day. Is this the Katabatic (spelling?) wind you once mentioned that roars down from the high ground? I would have thought that would have been more of a southerly but I don't know the local geography.

[compressor stall]

A very astute observation Towering Q. Mostly the surface wind here is an easterly, as Davis is relatively sheltered from the katabatics, unlike our Mawson cousins that expereince 40+ knots most mornings. Here, one would consider going for our 0500 MTB ride just like our old days in Kal!

The katabatics are driven by the terrain inland - everything comes from the icecap's 14000' high point - 707nm inland from here. This point was first visited by man on 26 Jan last year!! If you look on a terrain model of the Antarctic, you can see why it does not affect Davis as much as other parts of the coast because of the gradient uphill from here. Much of what would come this way heads west and down the Lambert Basin. What does come this way is also broken up by the Vestfold Hills, and combines with the general easterly flow experienced by this part of the world (the outflow of the polar cell due to coriolis) causing an easterly.Throw a hydraulic jump into the mix and it all gets too hard. :confused:

This system was driven by an intense low just off the coast here (948hpa was the lowest I saw it). We had 75 knots here last night... :eek: Winds have eased now and it's been snowing all day - an infrequent event in January. The "blows" as we call them, tend to be more northeastly than easterly as the position of the "complex low in Prydz Bay" influences the wind direction. (wish I had one dollar for every time I had heard a reference to that complex low!)

On the plateau the surface is smooth, so one does not find the direction change within the friction layer. It seems that inbound to Davis from Casey, the fastest groundspeeds are usually around the 1000' agl mark (the plateau is around 8000' to within about 100nm of station).
For those so inclined, the International Weather Forecasters' Handbook of Antarctica (http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/ant/handbook/handbook_16june04.pdf) has some excellent reading material.

Bellsux re: Beaver Lake food, well we did not find anything quite that old, but our challenge to pass the time was to make a gourmet meal from old food tins lying around. Reckon we did a pretty good job, but the day was saved by a ten year old tub of "fresh" crushed garlic (maybe yours?) and some herbs and spices of unknown vintage. :p I am sure it tasted better that the hundreds of dehy meals we had!

*edit - that handbook is 25mb download!

[farsouth]

they couldn't take off because they "stuffed" an under cart ski. Engineers went in via 2 x squirrells. CASA's might be to soft for the job perhaps twotters would be a more robust alternative...Hmm

Quote d-concord "Having flown both types in the early 80's I can assure you there is nothing soft about a 212. They are built like the proverbial! I'd back one in against a twotter any day for strength. They do however do very different jobs although you can do most things with a CASA that you would do with a twotter but not the other way around."

I am sure there are a lot of things you can do with a 212 that you can't do with a Twotter, but for landings on unprepared snow surfaces I would back an Otter any day. According to compressor stalls post, Vr in the CASA is 95 kts - in the Otter it is about 60. I hear that for most new sites the Squirrels have had to take in people first to prepare the surface for the CASA. Yes, Twin Otters break skis too sometimes, but you should see some of the places they go......