Air Support in Antarctica
 

Hi all, does PHI still have the contract to support the National Science Foundation at McMurdo station in Antartica?
Any ppruners ever work down there and can share some insights. What are the requirements to work there, the typical work day, the pros and cons of life at the station?

Currently flying IFR O&G, which is about as far from Antartic Ops as you can get.....but would give it up in a heartbeat to work down there.

Donner:

PHI no longer has the NSF contract at McMurdo as of next season. It was up for re tender but I believe that PHI decided that they were not going to enter a commercial ace to the bottom.

Thanks for the info Insider. That’s too bad the race to the bottom extends outside O&G but I’m hardly surprised. Any idea who got the contract?

Skytraders

If true that would be an interesting development - I didn’t realise they did rotary...

For general descriptions of what it's like the only relatively recent source I know is "Flying Upside Down" by Mark A Hienbaugh, published in 1998 - he was a pilot on LC-130's with the U.S. Navy's VXE-6 squadron,

I think you can still get it on Amazon.

For the US NSF contract I believe the contract was awarded to Air Center out of Texas. From the 2021 NSF budget request doc:
"Contracts for fixed and rotary wing support are managed as assisted acquisitions by the Department of Interior, Office of Aviation Services. In 2019, a five-year contract for helicopter support was awarded to Air Center Helicopters, of Burleson, Texas. A five-year contract for fixed-wing aviation services was recently awarded to Kenn Borek Air of Calgary, Canada"

There are a few videos out there that show different parts of life. Below is a recent one. I was signed up to go south back in the 90s but took a detour at the jungles of Peru and Bolivia for 3 years instead. Everyone said it was a chance of a life time and most of the PHI crews stayed for the duration except the last couple years. But if it's on your bucket list definitely look into it.

British Arctic Survey also operates aircraft in and to Antarctica. Must be amazing to fly there!

Gee, I don't know. Giving rides in a Robby might be a bit further away,...

,...and I'd give it up too, to live with the penguins :-)

Smelly dirty animals. Their chicks stand ankle deep in crap whilst their parents fish for them. They must know they are protected because they deliberately get in your way.

“I was signed up to go south back in the 90s but took a detour at the jungles of Peru and Bolivia for 3 years instead”

I can relate

British Antarctic Survey operate Twin Otter and Dash7 there, but no helicopters.

It was 🙂. . . (and I’m sure, still is !)

Air Center Helicopters

Pedant alert - birds not animals - but they do reek - after a while you sort of get used to it........................... :\

you just don't stand downwind of them once you've experienced it once:)

You can't miss a penguin colony. It a big yellow patch of s**t in the snow.

I had a mate who slipped and fell over in a colony.... not quite as bad as being skunked but certainly led to early "social distancing"

Birds are animals!

Animalia \ Chordata \ Vertebrata \ Aves

He wasn’t driving the bus back? :}