Antarctic Aerial Project

Press, Volume C, Issue 29682, 28 November 1961, Page 19

Antarctic Aerial Project

(From Our Own Reporter,

McMURDO SOUND. November 26. The most technically difficult aerial support project in the Antarctic this season —establishing the initial and terminal field camps for the Ellsworth land traverse—is two thirds completed. Flying operations in the area were, for men of the United States Navy’s VX6 Squadron, the end of 10 days’ waiting for clear weather. Aerial operations from McMurdo Sound started after the squadron commander (Commander M. D. Greenwell) received a message during a press conference yesterday. The message said a skiequipped Dakota from Byrd station had landed at the site of the proposed camp Minnesota at the foot of the Jones mountains, 500 miles from Byrd station. Minutes after receiving the message Commander Greenwell alerted crews of three Hercules on the ice runway. The first plant took oil at 12.30 pm. Thirty minute in-

tervals separated the other two. The planes each carried 11.8001 b of cargo over the 1320-miie flight to camp Minnesota. The cargo included three sno-cats. The Hercules landed on a temporary snow ski-way at the camp, five hours and 40 minutes after take-off. The landing strip had been prepared in seven hours and a half by the four-man crew of the Dakota headed by the pilot (Lieutenant R. H. Farrington), and three scientists. The men building the skiway had the use of three sno-cats left last year by a traverse party led by Dr. C. Craddock. Because the sno-cats were in working order the three carried by the Hercules were brought back to McMurdo Sound on Saturday night. After the first turn-around flight to camp Minnesota, crews were changed and the Hercules set off again carrying more supplies and fuel for the traverse party. The support operation will mark the first time a com-

plete scientific traverse team has been taken to its starting point by aircraft. Usu-ally-teams begin from a permanent camp, continue, and return to their starting point by land. The Ellsworth land traverse has, as one of its main objects, the tracing of the course of a deep trench, which runs under much of Marie Byrd land. A theory that the trench divided the continent has now been discounted. However, the course of the trench has not been fully mapped. The party will start by making studies, along the 1200-mile fioute, of the earth’s magnetism, the thickness of the ice, the nature of the rock beneath the ice, and the accumulation of the structure of the snow and ice. ITse party wilj take 2000 gallons of diesel fuel, mainly in huge tyres rolling behind their three-tractor train. Plans are being made to evacuate the traverse party in February by aircraft of VX6 Squadron.