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> Ruben's Report: 25 August 2005
Ute_Kaden
post Sep 9 2005, 03:55 PM
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Ruben's Report from USCGC Healy
Thursday the 25th of August


Position: 171 58.575 W 83 17.279 N

Weather: Cloudy with bad visibility

Depth: 1608 m Speed: 0,1 knots Heading: 103.0º

Today I got the possibility to walk on something different from steel for the first time in three weeks! On Wednesday night Don Perovich told me that I might get the chance to fly this morning. I got up at 07.00 had a fast breakfast before a flight brief on the bridge at 07.30. They told me that I would get to fly and that the mission was to plant GPS buoys on the ice. The pilots of the helicopter were going to be Brian and Andrea. A technician, Louis, would assist me in the back of the aircraft.

These buoys are transmitting their position by satellite to the scientists at home giving information about the movement of the ice. Batteries, GPS-receiver and a satellite transmitter were all packed into a yellow basket (se pic.) Each buoy weighs approximately 40 kg. We were hoping to be able to plant 6 buoys in a circle at a radius of 10 miles from a group of more advanced buoys. To make sure that the buoy does not blow away and really follows the ice flow, it is attached with an anchor to the ice.

After I got the good news about flying I ran to my cabin to change clothes and then straight to the hangar. When I got there one of the pilots had a short brief about safety and Don told me how to plant the buoy. Of course I had to wear the lovely mustang suit! (se pic.). At 8.15 I sat in the helicopter waiting for take off. It took a while to get properly strapped in and to get the helmet with the microphone on my head. The mustang does not make it easy to move around in small areas. Flying with these helicopters is absolutely a cool feeling but not very comfortable. I sat on a thin pad tied down to the floor in the back of the helicopter. I was lucky that I could secure my self with a belt strapped in to the helicopter after take off. This made it possible to move around in the helicopter and allowed me to take pictures out the door.

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IPB Image

Because of the low clouds, we flew at less than 100 feet above the ice to the position of the first buoy deployment. We found a good ice flow to land on right away. I got help from Louis to carry the buoy and the ice drill away from the helicopter. I had no problem drilling the hole to attach the anchor, the ice was quite soft. After planting the first buoy I was sweating and had to undo my fleece vest - a mustang suit is very warm.

The fact that the buoys were heavy and bulky made it impossible to bring all six on the helicopter at once. We planted the first three in about 45 min and then returned to Healy to refuel and load the other three buoys. They made a ‘hot fuel’ which means fueling while the engine is running. Due to safety precautions, I had to get out of the helicopter during the refuelling. This made it possible to open up my steaming mustang suit. It took less then 10 minutes to refuel and load the three remaining buoys. We then successfully deployed these last three with no problem.

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IPB Image

Upon returning to Healy after planting the last three buoys the ship was not clear for us to land. We had plenty of fuel, so the pilots decided to practice take-offs and landings on the ice. Landing on ice and snow can be a difficult task. When the sun shines thru fog or low clouds the light is spread in all directions which makes all the outlines disappear. It is called flat light. This makes the surface look totally flat and white even thou it’s not. It also makes it very difficult to tell the distance to the surface. If some of you ever have tried to ski in these conditions you know that it’s difficult.

We have had loads of foggy days so far and many flights have been cancelled because of this. I was happily surprised that we could carry through the whole mission. We had pretty low clouds but the visibility was good enough. I had a great time.

Ruben
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