Bombs Away!

The air drop finally occurred last night!

Yesterday afternoon the entire air drop crew assembled at Cargo for a safety brief – this included the entire Cargo department, plus the seven of us winter-overs that make up the winter air drop team. It was a full house! During the meeting, Paddy briefed us on what to expect, the sequence of events, and what was expected of us. Our C-17 crew, Mike and Scott, also gave us an inside perspective to the air drop – what we would see if we were in the air, and what we should see from the ground. We then waited for the plan to depart from McMurdo, but in the meantime the crew enjoyed a hearty plate of nachos. Those Cargo folks don’t mess around.

Finally, we got word that the plane had left. We departed soon after to make our way to the drop zone. The C-17’s commute from MCM to NPX (McMurdo to South Pole) is much shorter than the C-130. It takes a Herc approximately 3 hours for the transit, but the C-17 accomplished the trip in less than two hours last night. Since we are super-slow in our tracked vehicles on the ground, we must leave at least an hour before the scheduled drop. This gives us half an hour to travel to the site, and then half and hour on the ground to prepare. Once the convoy consisting of the LMC, Pisten Bully, and snowmobiles arrived at the drop zone, our preparations consisted of hanging around, staying warm, playing in the snow, and enjoying the spectacular sun dog show that the blow snow and ice crystals provided.

Finally the plane made it near the station… and then a Twin Otter squeezed in ahead of the C-17 to land. This delayed us by a few minutes. When the Twin Otter was safely on the ground, the C-17 made its first pass. Since they weren’t authorized to actually drop a package in the winter drop zone (on the skiway!), they practiced a fly-by instead. Of course, at this point in the evening, the visibility had dropped significantly. From where we were about two miles from the station, not even the farthest buildings from the station were visible. Our view of the flyby wasn’t great. They came through fast and low to simulate the drop – the pilots were telling us that they would approach the station at about 800 ft, even in the winter without the same visuals. It was quite impressive.

Then it was our turn. We waited for them to turn around and line up on the summer drop zone. And we waited. And waited. How long does it take to turn a plane around? It turns out they had some sort of mechanical issue on the plane that delayed the drop for a while. Finally we heard that they were ‘go’ and were headed our way. Authorization to drop was given from the ground crew, and the drop proceeded. Because of the direction and speed of the wind (it was picking up!), it felt like the plane dropped the packages right on top of us! Really, they were offset a little bit, but it was still quite exciting. They came through at an altitude of approximately 1000ft, opened the back, and slid out 8 pallets at a time. On the first deployment, two parachutes got caught in eachother, so the packages fell connected at a very fast rate. It was quite the explosion of snow when they reached the ground! On the second pass, one pallet’s chute didn’t deploy at all. That was another spectacular finale for that package! Once the packages were dropped at the plane was ‘Winchester’ (nothing left to drop), the C-17 did a few more flybys of the station before departing. Then it was our turn to go to work.

The crew jumped back in our vehicles and proceeded into the drop zone once it was declared safe by the C-17 crew. There were a total of 16 boxes to recover. Last night we only recovered the parachutes. There was no DNF (do not freeze) cargo dropped, so there wasn’t too much emphasis or urgency with the recovery. To recover the chutes, we broke up into teams. First, the chute must be detached from the package. This entails removing a shackle. Then the parachute is ‘cigar-rolled’ to control its huge mass. The parachute lines are bound together and daisy-chained to contain them as well. From there, the whole thing is rolled up and put in a box dragged on a sled for transport. On one of the parachutes Grace and I picked up to take to the box, it unraveled halfway across – I ended up tangled in the parachute and lying in the snow once we arrived. It was hilarious. We also recovered some other items from the drop – the crew sent a large stuffed penguin down with the first package my team recovered (he was later named ‘Winchester’), and we also found a set of ski goggles that one of the C-17 engineers lost by accident. The recovered goggles were sent back with our C-17 ground crew back to their owner.

Recovering the failed parachutes was a little more interesting. On the two that tangled together, the crew had to dig down about four feet to free the parachutes. On the chute that didn’t deploy, the box obviously did some crazy aerobatics and crashed upside-down in the snow. We dug down through the crater to the box, but there was no way we could remove the parachute. Instead, we marked the location for someone to later return with heavy machinery to pull it out. Yikes. All the packages will be recovered this weekend with loads of help – and big bulldozers!

All-in-all, the air drop was a fantastic experience. Not only was it amazing to see the accuracy of the Air Force with their air drops, but it was also important to get a feel for what to expect in the winter if we need an air drop. Winter air drops are strictly used for emergencies, so we really hope we don’t need one. Plus, although yesterday’s drop was a blast, we had perfect conditions. -17 F, sun, and about 17 kts of wind is much different from winter conditions where it will be -80 to -100 F in the dark. Keeping ourselves warm will be difficult, finding the packages will be difficult, and recovering the packages will be difficult. A fun maneuver in the summer is quite dangerous in the winter.

Although its not officially the weekend, it feels like it. With the air drop over, that’s a lot less stress on everyone. Our mass casualty drill was also postponed until next week, taking a large load off my shoulders. We have a busy flight schedule for the next two days, and we need at least 2 hours between flights, since we’ll be on the skiway. Add in the nasty weather that’s bearing down on us, and its not a good time for a drill.

This weekend is going to be fun – tonight there will be a rousing game of paper telephone, quite possibly the most amazing and hilarious game in the world. Tomorrow is Round 2 of James Brown Bingo (a crazy event not to be missed), and then a screening of ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ in the gym – costumes included. I’m excited to wear the wig I brought down. I was told a good wig is an essential item to pack for the South Pole. Good stuff.

Have a great weekend, everyone!