Well, I have been here for about six weeks now and this is the sixth installment of the series. You may be wondering what the heck brought me here in the first place. Well, I have already told you. I work on certain equipment here at McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica in support of the National Science Foundation and their many grantees. I specifically work on the Navigation Aids to help direct and land the the planes that takeoff and land, the various weather stations throughout the Continent and some of the communications that come to and fro. Let us start with the NavAids, which I have spent the last 3 weeks monitoring.
The NavAids portion consists of things that I have come to be aware of. The AN/URN-25 Tactical Air Navigation (
TACAN), The Microwave Landing System (
MLS) and the
Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI). The TACAN is the same that they use in the Navy. It helps with the station and the aircraft being able to see each other and communicate each other's position. I have been familiar with the system through the Navy as it seemed that every advancement exam had a few questions about it. However, I never really got to work on it until I arrived to my last ship. While there, I only worked on it sparingly as the system is super reliable. The MLS is used to give the pilot of the approaching aircraft the azimuth and elevation data as it approaches so it can have a smooth landing. The PAPI is used to provide guidance information to help a pilot acquire and maintain the correct approach (in the vertical plane) to an aerodrome or an airport. It is generally located beside the runway approximately 300 meters beyond the landing threshold of the runway. I took that explanation right from Wikipedia. You might notice that as I have provided links to the equipment to further explain it better than I ever can. The shop I work out of maintains a 24 hour stance while at the runway. Most flights happen to go between 6AM-11PM, but we have people there after hours to conduct daily maintenance and checks and for the off chance of an emergency flight that need to to go out. That mean we run three shifts R1, R2 and R3. Each shift is for a week at a time.
Our weather portion involves the AN/FMQ-19. It is an integrated weather system consisting of multiple weather sensors and information technology components that continually measure the environment near the surface of the earth. It automatically generates surface aviation weather observations based on user-defined events, either by time or occurrence of a particular weather element or category. I took that from the Air Force. The equipment takes readings such as Wind Speed, Barometric Pressure, humidity and the sort to assist the meteorologists to forecast the weather for the various camps and stations here in Antarctica.
As for the Communications portion of the job, I will be becoming a little more familiar with it. For the next five weeks I will be working out from the main shop, BLDG 159 in McMurdo. I might talk about that more in the future.
So, I guess that concludes this blog until next time. That should be very soon. It should contain the exploits of my trip to the South Pole, both Geographical and Ceremonial. Until next time, enjoy some of these pitcures I took for visuals.
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| This is Pegasus Airfield, one of the three airfields we have here in Antarctica. |
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| For an added bonus, this wonderful marker begins the South Pole Traverse. This is the route they use to bring fuel over land to the South Pole and various posts along the way. |
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| This is the shed that the MLS in Pegasus is housed. |
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| The PAPIs |
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| McMurdo Station from Pegasus. |
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| Picture of the AN/FMQ-19 Weather station. |
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| A closer look at the sensors of the Weather Station. |
