N.Z. ANTARCTIC PILOTS PRACTISE SKI LANDINGS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28985, 28 August 1959, Page 9

N.Z. ANTARCTIC PILOTS PRACTISE SKI LANDINGS

The temperature was nearing freezing point on the Tasman glacier. The sun had just disappeared behind Mt. Cook and its neighbouring mountain range, leaving the orange-painted Beaver aircraft in a cold shadow.

From the tops of the mountains whisps of snow blew out in long feathery streamers showing plainly that the wind was strengthening and that the skiplane's flight back to the Mount Cook airstrip was likely to be bumpy. Flying Officer P. W. Tremayne. of Auckland, had already made four or five practice ski landings on the glacier—as the other four pilots in the Royal New Zealand Air Force Antarctic Flight were to do in the next few days—and he and Flight Lieutenant W. J. Cranfield, of Christchurch, decided that the shadow creeping past the plane meant that it was time to take off. They and their passengers made themselvqs comfortable in the Beaver. The two pilots put on their bulbous helmets—each decorated with a sketch of a small, cheerful penguin—and turned around for a thumbs-up sign from the others. Flying Officer Tremayne made the necessary checks, checked that the retractable skis were down, and started the engine. The propeller whirled, the engine warmed up, and the pilot increased the throttle to start the Beaver sliding down the glacier. Nothing happened. However much throttle he gave the engine it just served to increase the vibration in the fuselage and lift the tail off the ice. It was 3.30 p.m. and in the shade on the mountains the Beaver’s skis had frozen fast to the glacier. Flight. Lieutenant Cranfield jumped down to the snow and tried to free the skis with a few mighty kicks from his boots. He was in Antarctica last year and is not unfamiliar with the effect cold temperatures can have on aircraft. When those measures failed to move the skis at all he took an ice-pick from a compartment in the Beaver and began to hack away at the frozen snow around the skis. Back in the plane, helmeted again, he muttered something about people who manage to stay warm inside Beaver ski-planes and waited while the pilot revved the engine. When it was obvious that the skis were still frozen to the glacier Flight Lieutenant Cranfield suggested to Flying Officer Tremayne that he should give the Beaver full rudder when it lifted its tail off the ice. That failed to work, too, and some people had visions of hacking out an igloo and spending the night on the Tasman glacier—at 5600 ft and several degrees below freezing point. On about the fifth attack with the ice-pick, however. Flight Lieutenant Cranfield managed to

free the skis sufficiently to allow the force of the straining propeller to prize them from the

The Beaver broke the glacier's hold and skidded forward down the long white slope. It was not before time. The wind had grown stronger and gustier—as the bumpy flight back to the Mt. Cook airstrip proved. This is the final aspect of the Antarctic flight's training at Mt. Cook. All five pilots had already had experience of ski landings on the glacier in Mr Harry Wigley's dual control Auster, but in these last few days they are making solo ski landings on the ice. Three of the pilots will be flying ski-planes in Antarctica. If the weather holds all five pilots will have done their ’wo or three hours' ski-landing practice on the glacier by Sunday and the flight will have completed its programme. Supply Dropping The other important part of their flying training was supply dropping. Squadron Leader L. C. Jeffs, who is in charge of the flight, said all the pilots had to be familiar with dropping techniques and patterns because that was the usual way for getting food to the sno-cats and dog teams. So on Tuesday they provisioned the Haast Hut, 7100 ft up the slopes of Mt. Cook. They dropped in 35 gallons of kerosene and 3001 b of foodstuffs. The pilots made 11 runs, just dropping the fuel containers into the snow, but parachuting the foodstuffs from 100 ft. “It is not the best dropping zone,” said Squadron Leader Jeffs, “but there's a reasonable plateau 300yds from the hut. All the supplies landed within 360yds of the centre of the plateau—a saucer measuring about 100yds by 50yds.” The men were flying in bumpy north-west conditions and any supplies which did not land in the right spot would have fallen 5000 ft down ice falls. The next day they provisioned the Malte Brun Hut. at 5600 ft and half-way up the Tasman glacier. They dropped 96 gallons of fuel and 3 cwt of tinned food on a 200 yd by 100 yd plateau immediately behind the hut. Only one fuel can burst in the entire operation.