First Landing At Sky-Hi

Press, Volume C, Issue 29681, 27 November 1961, Page 14

First Landing At Sky-Hi

A fifth attempt to land a Dakota aircraft at the site for the new Sky-Hi scientific base in the Antarctic’s Ellsworth Land succeeded yesterday morning, and the joint United States Navy and Air Force operation is at last under

plan is to establish a! landing strip at Sky-Hi, near the Sentinel mountain range so that five Hercules flights can be made there to land supplies for the establishment of a new camp site. Sky-Hi is 1525 miles from the McMurdo base, and the round trip is about as far as the Hercules can go. When the base has been established.

American scientists will spend the rest of the summer there on ionospheric, meteorological and geomagnetic studies. It is important, too, for the seven-man University of Wisconsin traverse party making the 1200-mile land journey from Camp Minnesota on the Eights Coast to Sky-Hi. The Dakota, which set off from Byrd station at 1.32 turn, yesterday, carrying a party to organise the landing strip and landing aids, arrived at SkyHi at 624 a.m. and found the weather clear. The previous four attempts to land there had been frustrated by bad weather. The Hercules aircraft have

landed three sno-cats for the traverse party at Camp Minnesota, and are expected to begin their five flights with supplies for the Sky-Hi camp immediately. When they have done that, three Globemasters will make six flights to Sky-Hi to drop more supplies. The three Globemasters all left

Christchurch for McMurdo Sound o nSaturday evening One turned back, but it left again at 10.30 pm. By the time the Hercules have been to Sky-Hi and landed men and equipment the base party will be ready to handle the airdrops from the Globemasters.