Aviation Specials – May 2018

Extreme Airports // 23

DANCING

ON ICE

landing on October 8, 1970.

The Connie was abandoned – the

complications of repairing it in such

climes making the project infeasible – but

the runway, augmented with a 4in (10cm)

snow surface, continued to be used until

December 6, 2016 when excessive melting

forced its closure.

After its 25 years’ service, windswept

snow soon reclaimed Pegasus Field.

But strangely the Connie remains, its

DayGlo orange triple tails sometimes

standing proud of the ice – large parts of

its airframe remarkably preserved by the

icy climate.

The Phoenix arises

For the 2017 season, Phoenix Airfi eld

(NZFX) replaced Pegasus. The search for

a suitable site had started some three

The aircraft arrived at McMurdo from

Christchurch, and after the passengers

had enjoyed a tour of the facilities it

continued to overfl y the South Pole and

on to Patagonia in Argentina. Since

then, commercial jets have occasionally

visited from New Zealand, to transfer

passengers to smaller Basler BT-67s

(turbine-powered conversions of Douglas

DC-3s) and de Havilland Canada DHC-6

Twin O ers which carry them onwards to

inland stations and remote camps.

Airfi elds

The US Navy built the fi rst runway in the

Antarctic, made from compacted snow,

in 1947. Experiments in Greenland in the

1950s demonstrated that the surface

could support aircraft as large as a

Douglas C-124 Globemaster II – which was

capable of fl ying between New Zealand

and the Antarctic – and by the mid-1960s

turboprop-powered Lockheed LC-130

Hercules took over the role of airlifting

supplies to the icefi elds.

The Russians continued to develop the

concept to the point where the runway

could be used by an Ilyushin Il-76 jet,

but the US decided to build a more

permanent facility on blue ice (see panel)

close to McMurdo.

A downed Connie

Pegasus Field (NZPG), the southernmost

of the facilities near McMurdo, was built

on a permanent glacier and had two blue

ice runways suitable for year-round use.

The strips were named after Lockheed

C-121J Constellation 131644 Pegasus,

fl own by US Navy Antarctic Development

Squadron VXE-6, which crashed while

PEGASUS FIELD (CLOSED)

ICAO Code: NZPG

Location: 77°57’48”S 166°31’29”E

Elevation: 18ft (5m)

Runways: 15/33 10,000 x 220ft

(3,048 x 67m)

PHOENIX AIRFIELD

ICAO Code: NZFX

Location: 77°57’23”S 166°46’00”E

Elevation: 18ft (5m)

Runways: 15/33 11,000 x 220ft

(3,353 x 67m)

ANTARTICA

LEFT: A National

Science Foundation

Bell 212 is offl oad-

ed from a US Air

Force Boeing C-17

Globemaster III.

(Wikimedia Com-

mons / Eli Duke)

LEFT: The six-hour

fl ight from New

Zealand on a

military transport

is not very com-

fortable. (Master

Sgt Lee Hoover /

US Air Force)

BELOW: Ice

dominates the

view during the last

hour of the fl ight

to McMurdo. (Maj

Joshua Hicks / US

Air National Guard)

22-26_McMurdo.indd 23 11/05/2018 14:07