bevonice: What am I doing here?

C-17 Landing at the runway

Most of my posts so far have been about the parties, the penguins, my room and the other things here. So what do I do most of the day? Well, I work in the cargo department. It is one of the largest departments here. We get small items that the scientists or field camp people need, and build them up on a large metal pallet that then is loaded onto the airplane. We fly C-130s to the field camps and other stations, like the South Pole. C-17s fly to and from Christchurch, NZ with our cargo on it that we then break down and either keep here in McMurdo or send out to the field camps. Once we build up all of the pallets they are loaded on the deltas for their 15 mile journey out to the airfield. This season we have flown over 80 flights to the Pole, and almost as many to all of the other field camps combined. My primary job is to plan the safe and fuel efficient cargo loads for the aircraft. Even though these are all military aircraft they are here on a peaceful mission.

Bags getting loaded on the metal pallet

Our line of pallets in our cargo yard waiting to go out
to the airfield.

Loading a pallet on the delta to take out to the airfield
for the flight.

Our pallet line out at the airfield.

The cargo is put on a sled and pushed up to
the plane for loading on the aircraft.

Cargo is sometimes taken out using the Kress vehicle

Cargo being loaded back on a delta to take back
to McMurdo from the airfield.

The airfield is built on the Ross Ice Shelf.
It is built on the snow so provides some challenges. They fly to the field camps and
land in some strong winds and storms. The
pilots do a wonderful job. Sometimes the snow
is so deep and soft at the field camps that
they have to use extra rockets on the outside
of the plane to take off.