Images of

ANTARCTICA

Williams Field

Photos © 2002 Seth White

Home

Today is Saturday 5/16/03. Yesterday was essentially a "snow day" for me. A big storm blew through, and Condition 1 was called for most areas around station for the whole day. In fact, McMurdo Station itself was under condition 1 earlier in the day. This was unusual, because McMurdo is fairly sheltered by the surrounding hills. It can be condition 1 at Arrival Heights or Pegasus and still be condition 3 at McMurdo. Condition 3 is normal weather. Condition 1 is severe weather, which basically means that no travel is permitted...even between buildings unless certain precautions are taken. So, I couldn't go to Cosray, Arrival Heights, or Radarsat yesterday. Instead I stayed on station and basically slacked the entire day....except for MAYBE 3 hours of office work. Today, same thing. Everywhere except McMurdo is condition 1 (due to a new storm), and the station manager has decided to call it a day at 3:00, as they are expecting the weather to increase in severity this afternoon. So, I went to the store and bought a 12-pack (of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) and rented 3 movies in preparation for an evening inside. They were planning a big BBQ/party at one of the bars tonight, but that has been cancelled. The station store is opening up 2-4 pm this afternoon so people can stock up before they get confined to their dorms when condition 1 is called (which is 90% sure to happen at some point). In the meantime, I decided to stay at Crary...not to work, but to slack. As soon as the official condition 1 email comes around, I'm going to run over to a dorm and hang out, watch movies, and drink beer. Yep, that's the grand plan for today. Meanwhile I thought I'd put in a Journey CD (I know, I know...but it's guilty pleasure day today) and make a page for the Williams Field tour I did earlier in the season. This picture is the view towards Williams Field ("Willy") as seen from T-site, which is directly above Scott Base.

Williams Field is a runway for ski-eqipped aircraft only. It is rebuilt every season on the Ross Ice Shelf about 4 miles from Scott Base (6 miles from McMurdo). The reason I say rebuilt is that it only operates during certain summer months. During the winter there is significant snow accumulation (several feet), so the runway must be reconstructed at the start of the summer season. In the meantime while Willy is being readied, the sea ice runway is used. Willy is operational by the time the sea ice gets unstable, so the buildings from the sea ice runway are dragged over to Willy and used there. While it's operating, shuttles run every 45 minutes to Willy from McMurdo, 24 hours a day. This is the first sign you see when you arrive at the field....
The Long Duration Balloon site is located at Williams Field. Here is a view of the complex. More pics from an LDB launch this summer here.
This is downtown Willy. I took a shuttle out to the field one day late in the season to take a few pics, since the field would not be fully operational by the time I leave in October '03 (I flew into the sea ice runway, and will fly out from there too). So here it is in full swing.
At the south end of the complex is this control tower and radome. The beautiful White Island is in the background.
Another (better) picture of this spare control tower and White Island.
Kenn Borek Air (out of Canada) operates the Twin Otter aircraft that are widely used down here (see pics below). This is their hut at Williams Field, with a pretty humorous sign on the door.
Some various structures off to the side of the main drag at Willy - sleds, ladders, cranes, etc.
The row of fuel tanks, looking back toward Hut Point Peninsula and the station.
For some reason I really like this picture. This thing is a fuel tank sled (I think) that someone drew a jack-o-lantern face on. Very cool. In the background is a row of sled-mounted huts and other structures. These things are sitting on a high berm. Why? The accumulation at Willy is several feet per year, and since these things will spend the winter here, the operators build a big berm and drag all the buildings and such on top of it. Thus, next year they won't have to mount an archaeological expedition to get the field ready! This is the same exact thing that we do for the power supply building used for the infrasound project at Windless Bight, which is about 10 miles farther on the ice shelf from Willy.
A neat sign, really out of place.
The bizarro fire vehicle (same one used at the Sea Ice Runway). Notice the "Foremost" label on the front. This is the same company that built Ivan the Terrabus as well as our fleet of Delta vehicles.
Here's a cool sight - a spare propeller for a LC-130 Hercules!
Every year a giant liquid helium dewar will arrive on the vessel. It's quite the event when this thing is towed over the road from McMurdo to Willy and helium transferred to some smaller dewars. Cryo fluids are used in mass quantities by various astronomical experiments at South Pole, so it's a big deal to get enough of the stuff up there each season. It was pretty close this year - the vessel arrived late, and for a time there was a question if they would be able to fly such heavy loads to Pole that late in the season since it was getting cold there, fast. As it gets colder, lift decreases to the point where heavier cargo can't be flown (I figured this would be the opposite...colder heavier air = more lift, right? No? Anyhow, that's what somebody told me and I am not interested enough about this point to confirm its validity). Anyway....the dewar is the heaviest thing they have to fly up. Phil Broughton, the Pole cryotech and Jesse Alcorta, the McMurdo cryotech, were both heavily involved in this process. Days went by while they waited for the vessel to arrive. When it finally got here (around midnight one day), the very first thing unloaded was the dewar. It was taken straight to Willy and the transfer process was begun. We did manage to get the fluids to Pole after all, but it was close. I didn't see the actual transfer itself (which is supposed to be pretty cool to watch), but I did get out to Willy the next day. Here are liquid helium dewars waiting to get flown to Pole.
Another pic of the dewars. The big one at the back came on the vessel, while the smaller ones in front are small enough to fit on a Herc.
A view of the interface area between the dewars. They just sat there burping and hissing (as they off-gassed) while I took their pictures.
This is the Williams Field control tower.
Since there were no planes coming or going, I decided to knock on the door and see if I could look inside. Sure enough, the guys invited me in and we chatted for a bit. It was a slow day for them. I asked if I could walk out to see the Hercs up close, and they said sure. They also suggested some good pics might be had from the top of the control tower. Very cool.
Before taking off I had to take a picture of these clocks in the tower. Let's see here: McMurdo time, Zulu (Universal) time, and Schenectady, NY time. Huh?? Well, Schenectady is home to the NY State Air National Guard wing (the 109th) that does the flying down here.
Up to the top of the tower - this is looking more-or-less eastward towards the LDB site.
Another pic of downtown Willy Field.
Flags on the control tower, with an anemometer. The anemometer is camoflauged, which is critical for operation in the Antarctic.
This is a view out towards the planes from the tower. The Twin Otters are in the foreground, and the Hercs are in the distance.
A better picture of the parking lot...
Here are a group of Hercs, one of which was getting readied for a flight to Pole.
Three tailfins, looking back toward the Willy complex.
The LC-130 Hercules. Following are a bunch of anatomical pictures of this beast.
The wing. It's interesting how all four engines will stop with the propellers exactly vertical/horizontal. I'm not sure how this happens, but it's a nice touch by the designers of this...or is it the pilots that do it?
The front view.
The nose and landing gear.
The derriere.
Another cool picture (to me anyway): the engine and propeller. Nice lines!
I was strolling around the Hercs and a truck came up beside me. A guy very cordially told me they were going to start up one of the planes shortly, and I should head back (on the front side of the plane...to avoid the prop-wash!). So I turned around, and as I was walking by it started up. Here's a little video (.avi file) with the sound of the Herc coming to life.
Here are some pictures of the Twin Otters. These planes are legendary here for their abilities in this environment. They can pretty much land anywhere that's reasonably flat, and they have the lowest temperature rating of any aricraft here. They are used to fly in and out of various deep field camps and can fly to Pole when other aircraft are limited by the temperature. In fact, I believe one was used to rescue the South Pole doctor (no, not the "rescue" of the one with breast cancer...the next rescue during a later year which was MUCH more risky as it was done in the dead of winter!!!).
The Otter fleet.
A front view of this aircraft. I would love to fly in one of these!
Rearward picture of the plane.
The nose and landing gear.
And another picture of the Twin Otter.
Closeup of the ski landing gear.
Back to McMurdo. Here's the road, with Observation Hill in the distance. They put a lot of work into building and maintaining this road each year. Part of it is creating several "lanes". They will then rotate times when travel is allowed on which lane and which kinds of vehicles (tracked or wheeled) can use certain lanes. It's really quite smooth once it's built. You can cruise along pretty well. OK, well, that's Willy Field. I'm headed off to enjoy the snow day.