THIS MONTH, Hickam Air Force Base played host to five Air National Guard cargo planes that are more at home on the ice floes and snow fields of Greenland or the South Pole.
The five LC-130 cargo planes, belonging to the New York Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing headquartered in Schenectady, N.Y., stopped in Hawaii en route to McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The cargo planes, outfitted with skis, are part of Joint Task Force Support Forces Antarctica, Operation Deep Freeze, which began in August.
Since 1988, the New York Air National Guard has been part of Operation Deep Freeze by providing the air supply bridge for the National Science Foundation's study of Antarctica. The New York unit flies 10 LC-130 cargo planes equipped with retractable skis that allow the aircraft to land on snow and ice in addition to traditional runways.
All of the C-130s also are equipped with jet-assisted-takeoff rockets, four on each side of the 97-foot aircraft. The rockets are used when the LC-130 operates from rough, unprepared snow surfaces or when shorter takeoff runs are needed.
Lt. Col. Gary James, 109th operations group commander, said air crews from New York are away from home from two to 16 weeks from October to February, which is summer in Antarctica and the South Pole.
The unit's last six-month Antarctic mission resulted in 466 flights -- a record for Deep Freeze operations, including the most flights over the South Pole, 337, said Lt. Col. Walt Clark, operations officer for the Antarctica joint task force in March.
The New York Air Guard unit also holds the record for the most cargo moved to and from the South Pole -- 12.2 million pounds.
Senior Master Sgt. Mark Olena, a LC-130 flight engineer, said all of the cargo planes are equipped with two 21-foot-long, 2,000-pound skis on each side of the fuselage, along with a 1,000-pound ski on the front of the aircraft.
All of the cargo planes use eight rocket bottles -- four attached to either side of the plane -- to give it added thrust equal to one engine during the first 13 seconds of takeoffs from the ice floes and ice packs.
"That gives us enough inertia to break the friction holding the plane to the snow," Olena said
Olena has lost count of the number of times he has flown the Antarctic missions since 1988. This time he will be there for a month, then goes home for three weeks before he returns for another tour.
"The conditions there change all the time," Olena, 42, said. "It's just like cross-country skiing."
Olena said dealing with Antarctica's climate, where the mercury can dip to minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit, is always the most dangerous part of the missions.
"The difficult part is the environment which has an impact on both people and the aircraft," Olena added.
ALL OF THE Antarctic missions are coordinated by the 13th Air Forces headquartered at Hickam.
James, 44, said the New York Air Guard unit, which has 10 specially equipped C-130 aircraft, flies support missions between Ross Island and McMurdo station, 2,500 miles south of Christchurch, New Zealand, to the South Pole and other camps throughout Antarctica.
The headquarters of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic program is on Ross Island at McMurdo Station. It is the largest station in Antarctica and was established in 1995. It is built on the bare volcanic rock of Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island, the southernmost solid ground accessible by ship. As the logistics hub of the U.S. Antarctic program, it has a harbor, landing strips on sea ice and shelf ice, and a helicopter pad.
Supplies and people are flown by C-17 cargo jets to McMurdo, where in summer airplanes with wheels land on an ice runway near the station. However, as it gets colder, the LC-130s land on a snow-covered skiway on the Ross Ice Shelf a few miles from the station. The C-17 jet cargo aircraft are from McChord Air Force Base in Washington.
James, who headed the crew of six airmen, flew one of the first flights to McMurdo Station last week, taking about 40 National Science Foundation support personnel and scientists.
"We will return in about a week," said James during a brief two-day layover at Hickam, "and then take out the nearly 50 people who have been there for most of this year."
The 109th flew its first Antarctic mission in January 1988. The Navy run the supply operations from 1955 until 1998 when the New York Air Guard assumed full control of the mission.