Transport at McMurdo

Photograph courtesy NSF

Cargo on the other hand tends to mainly come in by sea, at least the heavy and bulky stuff such as fuel does.

The Ross Sea around McMurdo Sound freezes solidly each winter and cannot be relied upon to be ice free come the spring and summer, so ice breakers accompany cargo and supply tankers to break a path through the ice if necessary.

Here (left) a tanker is tied up to an artificially created floating freshwater wharf (a sort of man-made ice berg) while unloading.

New York Air National Guard LC-130 Hercules. The LC-130 is equipped with ski-landing gear that allows the aircraft to land on ice or snow while airlifting supplies to remote locations throughout the Antarctic continent. Photographs courtesy NSF

"Reet big jossers" (as my granddad would have said). The aircraft that fly to McMurdo take off from Christchurch in New Zealand and so need to be large to have sufficient range to get there and also fly through the winds and storms that they may encounter en route.

The pictures show a LC-130 Hercules (left) which is the mainstay of the US Antarctic programme and a heavy transport C-5. The Hercules are uniquely ski-equipped for landing on the ice runways, while the C-5's are used to transport priority cargo to McMurdo base.

Ships take the heaviest and bulkiest of the cargo, but even when accompanied by icebreakers, their itinerary cannot be guaranteed. Many scientific programmes therefore take necessary equipment  by aircraft so they can get started sooner in the season as the Austral summer is a very short season. Also, other vital supplies to keep the base running smoothly can be carried down by aircraft sooner than can be achieved by hip.