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Team travels to ends of earth to ensure flight safety

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Rich Curry
  • 507th Air Refueling Wing
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Flight safety is serious business in the Air Force. For one group of Air Force reservists, it's so important they're willing to go to the ends of the earth.

Five members of the 507th Air Refueling Wing's 1st Aviation Standards Flight left Oklahoma City in mid-October en route to Antarctica to conduct airfield inspections.

The mission of the 1st ASF is to perform flight inspections of navigational-aid radar and instrument procedures at military and civilian installations in the United States and overseas. Working with the Federal Aviation Administration, the flight operates from the Will Rogers International World Airport in Oklahoma City.

This year people in both organizations are travelling to Antarctica to inspect the airfields, including the one at the South Pole, ensuring they are safe for use by C-130s, C-17s and helicopters ferrying supplies and thousands of scientists with the National Science Foundation.

Master Sgts. Kirk Babcock, Lori Pink and Brad Elliot, all members of the flight, left the States on Oct. 12 crossing the dateline to arrive at Christchurch, New Zealand, on Oct. 14. In New Zealand, they received cold weather gear before flying to McMurdo Station, Antarctica.

Lt. Col. William Geiser and Maj. Brett Vanmeter flew an FAA Challenger 601 aircraft from Oklahoma City to McMurdo. They left Oklahoma City on Oct. 10 and arrived in Christchurch on Oct. 15. Five days later they landed the Challenger CL-601 at McMurdo.

McMurdo Station is Antarctica's largest community. It is built on the bare volcanic rock of Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island, the farthest south solid ground that is accessible by ship.

Established in 1956, the station has grown from an outpost of a few buildings to a complex logistics staging facility of more than 100 structures including a harbor, an outlying airport (Williams Field) with landing strips on sea ice and shelf ice, and a helicopter pad.

The station accommodates 1,200 people in summer and 200 in winter. It covers nearly 1.5 square miles of land between Hut Point and Observation Hill. Aboveground water, sewer, telephone and power lines link buildings.

Sergeant Babcock is the team leader for the 15- member FAA team. While an Air Force Reserve NCO, he is the FAA Antarctic Flight Inspection Program manager, Aviation Systems Standards in civil service.

"I am the lead for the Antarctic mission," he said. "It does get sort of confusing for people because I do go down to the ice under military orders but have the same job in the FAA (Flight Inspection Program)."

He said FAA is the primary sponsor of the Antarctic mission.

"They (FAA) are ultimately in charge of this mission by request from the National Science Foundation and commander of Operation Deep Freeze (Air Force)," he said.

The total number of crewmembers this year is 15 - six pilots, four mission specialists, three maintenance people and two support people.

This is the first year the team is using the Challenger aircraft operationally to conduct the inspections.

"Last year we took a Challenger CL-604 down to McMurdo to do a feasibility test," Sergeant Babcock said. "The test was successful so this year we are taking the Challenger 601 down to also do some tests but primarily to certify the navigation aids."

The only place the team can land the Challenger is at Pegasus Airfield, some 20 miles from McMurdo. The other airfields are packed with snow and can only be used by ski-equipped aircraft.

Flying the Challenger eliminates the need to use an "ice-box" - a palletized calibration equipment compartment previously flown in C-130 aircraft to inspect navaids. This year the team took the ice-box only as a backup.

During their 20-day stay in Antarctica, the members of the team will inspect six major navaids and eight instrument procedures at three airfields.

"The airfields being inspected this year are Pegasus Airfield and Williams Airfield at McMurdo as well as the South Pole Airfield at the South Pole," said Sergeant Babcock. "The navaids are two Microwave Landing Systems, two TACANS, and three PAPI lights.

"The NSF does not have any Instrument Landing Systems in Antarctica," he said. "They use the MLS for the Air Force support aircraft. They do use Global Positioning Systems down there and it works really well. We will be inspecting GPS approaches at the South Pole and around McMurdo. At one time GPS wasn't very usable in Antarctica because of the lack of satellites but since they have added to the satellite constellation, it is a very good form of navigation in Antarctica. It is used by ground vehicles and science monitoring equipment as well as aircraft."

Working in Antarctica presents several unique challenges. Average temperatures on Antarctica range from minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the interior during the winter to 36 degrees along the coast in the summer. Winds can gust up to 200 miles per hour.

Because Antarctica has very dry air, large amounts of static electricity can be generated, particularly when the wind is strong. Static electricity can instantly destroy unprotected electronic equipment.

"Static electricity is a huge problem down there," Sergeant Babcock said. "To say it is very dry is an understatement. The crews take all the needed cautions involved with working with static but for the most part I think it is more of a problem with us individually because as we go around our lives down there we are constantly getting shocked from all the dryness and static."

This is Sergeant Babcock's seventh trip to Antarctica.

"The thing that impresses me the most is the beauty and peacefulness of such a harsh environment," he said. "One day it can seem harmless, and the next day it is complete white-out blizzard that without the proper protection you won't survive." (Air Force Reserve Command News Service)