Source

Despite what seems to be a possible dangerous lack of "Snow" experience, these two "Geriatrics" as some have called them, appear to have enough guts and balls to undertake adventurous flights.

Can anyone of you previous posters say you would not undertake the same had you the funds to do so?

An adventure always contains a certain amount of uncertainty, or should we all be living with the sterilised knowledge of huge corporate,state or military back up, just to go an see what is over the hill!

Vfr

I'd guess every single one of us have learned from pilots who were at the time older than these "Geriatrics", or had considerably less hours than either of them: I certainly have.

G

on the point of colin bodill getting his license in 7 days....
colin has a lot of experience within the aviation field as we all know but to be able to obtain a license within that time should not be allowed , to cram that much information into your brain plus the exams is going to amount to OFBS (overloaded fried brain syndrome) i would like to bet he did his training at **** air in wellesebourne!
i wonder if i had gone that route and crammed it all in in that space of time would i have passed my flight exam..

I don't know where Colin did his training but, if it was HeliAir at Wellesborne, it was a good choice.
If I needed training for a flight like theirs, HeliAir would certainly be one of the names on my very short shortlist - especially if I was guaranteed I could have Mike Smith teaching me throughout. Probably not, but I don't know anything about your experience, whether you have any other aviation experience/qualifications etc.
I know I couldn't have done it in a week, but I haven't got Bodill's vast aviation experience.

point taken F/L with colins vast experience i would have thought the only exam he would need would be helicopter technical as he would already have passed the rest within his other activities.
i wasnt knocking heli-air as a training organization in any way, if it came across that way i do apologise, the point i was getting to is that its near impossible to train someone from scratch to pilot (be it fixed wing or rotary) in that short space of time.

Award!!! They get and award for that? I thought it was just common courtesy to pull your crew from the wreck.

If they dont get at least a small amount of IFR training before trying this stunt again, the only award they are likely to get next time is a "Darwin Award".

Helisurfer,

I'm inclined to agree about the award. As most of you know, I fully support these two, and most "adventurers", and wish I had the money to do something similar. But I've never quite understood people getting awards for rescuing family, friends, colleagues etc, in these sort of situations. Putting yourself at risk for complete strangers, yes! But someone had to put the tent up and get them both some warmth and shelter. Colin managed to do it even though injured, so good for him, yes! But...an award? I don't get it.

In the extremely unlikely event that I'm ever offered an award for anything similar, I think I'd turn it down.

It makes you sick, doesn't it? An award for being a human being. My mum stuck a plaster on my knee when I fell over and tore it really badly, blood every where and it needed stitches.
Can my mum get an award for saving my life as I could have bled to death.
No, of course not. She did what she did because.........no heroics, just did the normal thing... taking care of our fellow human beings

So after all this.

What have we learnt from this?

Is it now safer to fly?

Have engineering advances ben made?

On the basis that we should learn something from the errors of others. I am appraising my attitude to flying.

Murray and co, we are waiting for your full report.

AAIB accident report available here.

Hello PPRuNers!

I'm here in Anaheim, CA attending the HAI Heli-Expo. I just had the privelage of interviewing Jennifer Murray & Colin Bodill, and will post the entire excerpt from that interview within the week. In my opinion, some of the responses in this thread have been unfairly negative. If we never attempted what others thought were impossible, we wouldn't continue to learn and improve aviation. As a helicopter pilot, who spoke with both Jennifer and Colin first hand, I feel that a lot of lessons and "firsts" were indeed learned... for the benefit of all. I believe that Colin and Jennifer are very genuine people and probably wouldn't go out of their way to defend themselves against the malice and venom presented here or elsewhere. I'll try to post some of the the technical information learned as soon as I can.

There WILL be another attempt made, and plans are in the works for a future liftoff (2006 - 2007?)

R2

I don't think people are really knocking these "adventurers" for making these flights. It's just not particularly difficult if you have the money and a little commonsense, i.e. able to understand a met forecast, able to flight plan the fuel requirements correctly, able to not get too bored on long ferry flights and have a tough bum that doesn't get too numb.
As Whirlbird said if she had the money, she would like to do it and I'm quite sure she could.
Most of these "firsts" occured over 40 years ago in the antarctic, not sure about the northern end. Oz companies were flying the Hiller 12 in the antarctic years before some of these heroes were born. And of course helicopters were far more basic then and no gps.
So if doing this takes your fancy, go for it but remember it's no big deal.
Now doing a rescue in mid Atlantic on a black stormy night, that's difficult.:O

Ah Nigel, but that would mean having to experience real danger and use real skill rather than just having a big wallet and doing a ferry flight to Antarctica.

So he gets an award for being a fully paid-up member of the self preservation society - what about the pilot who actually rescued them and managed to land without crashing so they could be taken home to blighty?

RDRickster,
These people dont even get page 3 anymore, never mind page 1.
Too many doing it, and the challenge is no longer there. All been discussed before.
They haven't learned from their mistakes first time round, now they're off to do it again. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Keep throwing money until it sticks I suppose.

"Most of these "firsts" occured over 40 years ago in the antarctic"............."????

Feb 4th 1963 - US Army UH1B's land at South Pole, having flown in from the Antarctic Coast, but are airlifted back to McMurdo by LC130 - First helicopters ever to land at Pole

January 28th 1999, Chilean Airforce Blackhawk lands at South Pole - First helicopter ever to reach South pole under its own power from outside the continent. It then returns to Chile, also under its own power. (Supported by Chilean Airforce Twin Otters).

December 17th 2003, Jennifer Murray and Colin Bodill arrive at South Pole in their Bell 407, but the aircraft does not leave the continent.

January 18th 2005, Smith and Brooks land R44 at South Pole after flying in from outside the continent (first piston engine helicopter to South Pole), however, the aircraft only flew back as far as 80 South (Patriot Hills) where it was loaded into the back of an Ilyushin 76 to be airlifted to Punta Arenas

No civilian helicopter has ever flown from outside the Antarctic to the Pole and back out again, and only one military has

A big wallet and an understanding of met forecasts does not make it "easy", nor does it take away requirements for skill, nor take away the dangers of flying in the Antarctic.

Farsouth

My previous company operated in the Antartic for about 25 years. During that time, 2 of their pilots achieved 2000 hours there without mishap. In fact I can not recall a single pilot induced incident or accident. The machines did go down there by ship but tell me why flying across South America is more dangerous or difficult than flying across Europe or Russia or India or China or the Middle East or the Far East or Australia? Surely a ferry flight properly planned should not pose a great problem as long as the machine stays serviceable. I've only done 10 or so flights of greater than 4000 miles, all before the GPS was invented and neither I nor any other pilot had any problems.
I believe Dick Smith, a private pilot flew a 206 to both poles in the 80s.
Most charter companies just get on with the job and don't go looking for hero status, so no one knows how many pilots have flown to the south pole.
Yes, if they can afford it thats fine but don't tell me it's any harder or more dangerous than most flights pilots do every day. I know during my 44 years flying helicopters that I have done far more difficult flights than when I was in the Antarctic.

I am glad to hear that your company operated so successfully during its Antarctic operations, and that you found it so easy. However, I can think of at least 5 total write-offs of helicopters in recent years in Antarctica, involving military, commercial, government and private operators as well as numerous accidents and incidents involving fixed-wing aircraft, the majority of which were related to weather conditions.

The flight across South America, while more risky in some parts than others (Amazon Jungle??), is certainly not the hardest part of flying to the Pole. There are still support facilities, (airports, fuel, hotels, food) at most of the planned stops.

Leaving South America, the 600nm leg across the Drake Passage is well-known for extreme weather. On arriving in the Antarctic, you then have a 3400nm round trip to fly, over a route where there are very few actual weather reports, no airports, little or no ground support, fuel only in pre-depoted caches, surface temperatures down to minus 25 in midsummer, landing sites at up to 10 or 11,000 ft.

I am not suggesting that this is the only place where a lot of these conditions are found, and pilots cope with them. But I still would say that to suggest that it is easy, and no challenge, and takes only little skill and a big wallet, to safely fly from outside the continent to the Pole and back again, is patently not the case.
Whether there is any point to these flights is a different question

( I think that Dick Smith only flew his 206 to the North Pole – his late-80’s flight to South Pole was by Twin Otter)