Pilot makes first NVG Antarctic landing

"Dan" wrote in message
...
george wrote:
On Sep 14, 12:58 am, Dan wrote:

Antarctica gets very little snow which makes me wonder what CNN's
definition of blizzard would be.

Have a look at any of the cameras on the ice during a storm.
Most of the snow comes in horizontally


That's windblown ice. Antarctica's airmass is very dry, very little
snowfall. Most of the place has had about 20 centimeters of snow over the
past 50 years.


True on average of course but the coastal regions get around 40cm
while the plateau gets 5cm or so.

Keith

Paul Saccani wrote:
On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 00:08:28 +1000, Ned wrote:

Air Force Lt. Col. Jim McGann said the airplane's own lights --
reflecting off of traffic cones -- allowed it to land without electrical
runway lights that are too hard to maintain in the frozen environment.

You would think that they could just use retro reflectors, rather than
go the NVG route.

Good point - actually CNNs "traffic cones" - dumbed down to witches hats
in the minds of it's natural audience, were in fact retro reflective cones.

"Major Corey Simmons, the pilot, was ecstatic that he and his crew were
the first people in aviation history to land on the Antarctic continent
at night.

"We just did the first NVG (Night Vision) landing on Pegasus using retro
reflective cones that we have been testing for about 18 months or so,"
said Simmons."

"It was actually pretty challenging & with some heavy snow, so when we
first extended the lights out into the environment it's probably like
you've seen snow at night with your car and your high beams on and it's
come at yah .. well that was coming at us, except at 180 miles an hour,"
says Pilot Lieutenant-Colonel Jim McGann.

But the four hour flight in the end was smooth and the 20 pilots
onboard were all given a chance to see how the winter flights will work.

"The goggles were fantastic, the outline and runway were perfectly
clear we could see it from three miles, rolled right in picture perfect
landing," says McGann.

Above quotes from NZ TV which also has footage of the NVG view.

Ned