Leg 274, Base Belgrano II to Neumayer III skiway, Antarctica
DAY05_22.PLN (2.6 KB)
Another dark leg, exploring Antarctica in winter time. It’s a fascinating continent, very big as well
FS2020 only has Belgrano II (Coats Land) and McMurdo (Ross Ice Shelf) included. There is no terrain at all from about 85 degrees and as far as 72 degrees elevation data goes missing. The rest still has the correct base height but is as flat as a pool table. It gets up to 12,500ft at Dome Fuji! I didn’t go to Dome Fuji, visited a couple research stations closer to mapped areas.
05-22 Base Belgrano II SAYB 7:49 AM 175nm next
05-22 Halley Skiway 75°34’54.0"S 26°32’28.2"W 8:50 AM 403nm next
Propeller level stuck on minimum, no clue why, no power to take off, restart
05-22 Halley Skiway 75°34’54.0"S 26°32’28.2"W 8:57 AM 403nm next
05-22 Kohnen Skiway 75°0′6.88″S, 0°3′59.83″E 11:20 AM 9,550ft 187nm next
05-22 Troll Airfield 71°57′19.4″S, 2°28′2.63″E 12:27 PM 4,010ft 100nm next
05-22 SANAE IV Skiway 71°40′20.58″S, 2°49′29.48″W 1:04 PM 2,670ft 122nm next
05-22 Neumayer III skiway 70°38′6.74″S, 8°15′48.74″W 1:47 PM CTD on end flight
Flight time 5:51 5 stops
Base Belgrano II early morning, although since its night all day, does it matter?
First flight is to Halley Research Station
Brunt Ice Shelf below
A large part broke off on Februari 26, A-74, twice the size of Chigago
No clue if this opening is part of it, doesn’t correlate to any map
Landed at Halley Skiway. The base is unmanned in winter, but it seems someone left the lights on
Mysterious lights right where the British base is supposed to be
I went over to investigate, just a couple lights, nothing else to see
Halley VI Research station, measurements from Halley led to the discovery of the ozone hole in 1985
Brunt Ice Shelf near Halley Research Station
Time to move on, faint glow of dawn on the horizon
Next stop, Kohnen Skiway
I’m on the edge of the world here, no more elevation data
Moonrise on the way to Kohnen
Kohnen research station, lonely building on absolutely flat terrain
Ground level is at 9,550ft here, despite lacking a height mesh
Kohnen Research Station, a German summer-only polar research station
Someone did the effort to match it up after a rumor went around aliens were there…
Onwards to Troll station
Getting back to the height mesh
Moonlight is plenty for exploring
With the benefit of beautiful night skies
Unnamed ridge, at least on Google and Bing
Down there is Troll Station, spotted
Troll Station, a Norwegian research station
Troll Airfield
Looks rather slippery for my rubber tires
Full year base for continuous, long-term monitoring series in meteorology, radiation, atmosphere, upper atmosphere, environmental toxins and seismology
It looks like different teams visit each other often
Beautiful place to do research
Next up, SANAE IV
Lights mark the spot
It’s another one with just a couple floating lights
Awesome spot for the fourth South African research base in Antarctica
They’re monitoring neutrinos there
http://natural-sciences.nwu.ac.za/space-research/research-areas/antarctic-research
Located in Queen Maud land, stunning geography
Not so much in game, room for improvement
On to Neumayer III, mysterious mountains ahead
I’m at 13,800ft, are these real mountains, there is nothing on the map
There are giant holes and straight edges as well, maybe just noisy data
More odd mountains sticking out
Neumayer III skiway, nothing here
Neumayer III station, a German Antarctic research station of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut
The station is moving with the shelf ice at about 200 meters per year towards the open sea. Hydraulic lifting feet prevent new snow from causing the platform to sink
Maybe one update we’ll get views like these at the poles
That was my final stop for today, next flight requires a bit of timing (departure 1AM) to fly to the Falkland islands via South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It’s going to be a long one.
No sunlight today, although I could have caught the sun at Neumayer III. In the air only though, it says down all day since May 21st. At 8:30 AM my time the sun should have been visible above the horizon higher up in the air. The sun returns here on July 23rd.
Antarctica is very interesting to explore. I would love to go back after an Antarctic world update.