User manual

Antarctica Vol. 1 - British Rothera and Beyond
Aerosoft GmbH 2021
34 35
English
History and Further
Reading of Antarctic
Aviation
The early history of Antarctic Aviation has been covered thoroughly in
Malcom Mellor’s Notes on Antarctic Aviation, which can be
downloaded for free from the US Army Corps of Engineer’s website:
https://erdc-library.erdc.dren.mil/jspui/handle/11681/9167
Although quite outdated, this is probably the best lecture on Antarctic
Aviation and also contains a lot of information on other areas of
Antarctic Aviation than history.
Antarctica is probably the harshest environment to fly on the world.
Aircrafts that are severely damaged are often written off and left in
the ice because a recovery and repair would be just too expensive.
Contrary to that, there have been some very impressive recoveries in
the past years where crashed aircraft have been provisionally repaired
and brought off the continent for further repairs.
Good to Know
Note the person talking to a Skua next to the runway. It’s dedicated to
a staff worker working here for many seasons who became best
friend of that bird returning here every year from Mallorca (the bird,
not the worker!). That same worker also places lights on the drums
along the runway if there is an aircraft approaching in the dark.
If you keep looking you will find a small zodiac steering to and from a
group of islands to the southwest where it will meet a group of Orca
whales.
Higher up on the glacier is a long emergency skiway marked by
drums. If the Dash 7 is flying from Punta Arenas to Rothera to bring in
personnel and cargo and reaches the point of no return, it has to land
in Rothera come hell or high water. From that moment on, the
runway in Rothera has to stay clear until the Dash 7 touches down. If
for whatever reason one of the Twin Otters comes in during that
timeframe, it has to touch down at the emergency skiway on the
glacier above the base and wait there until the Dash 7 has landed.
The reason is simple: If the Twin Otter has an accident, an engine
shutdown or anything else happens on the runway in Rothera, the
runway would be blocked and the Dash 7 couldn’t land anywhere
else. Unlike a Twin Otter the wheeled Dash 7 can’t touch down on
the glacier!
As soon as the Dash 7 has landed and the pilots of the Twin Otter
have finished their cup of tea they can take off again and land at
Rothera.