SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. - This winter has been one of the warmest in history, and in many parts of the country skiers are crying and snowboarders are bummed. But there's an organization in upstate New York that looks for winter and finds it all year long.
The 109th Airlift Wing, based at Stratton Air National Guard Base in Scotia, New York, flies the only ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules aircraft in the U.S. military. Their mission is to provide open field airlift support to the National Science Foundation scientific research missions in both the Arctic and Antarctic.
According to the wing's history, the unit began flying LC-130s in 1975 after being tasked with delivering critical supplies to the radar sites guarding the northern U.S. border with the Distant Early Warning System in Greenland, on the polar ice cap. Despite that mission ending in Dec. 1989 with the end of the DEW Line mission, operational science support and training continue today on the Greenland ice cap.
Before the DEW Line mission ended, the wing had already begun augmenting the Navy's South Pole mission, starting in 1988, and flew with the Navy for the next eight years. In 1998, the 109th assumed full responsibility for supporting the U.S. Antarctic program.
One of the wing's biggest missions was the transport of the materials needed to build the facilities at the South Pole – called South Pole Station.
Air Force lt. Col. Jody Ankabrandt, the wing public affairs officer, said after 925 flights spanning a 12 year period, the wing had transported a total of about 24-million pounds of cargo – approximately 26,000 pounds per flight.
Today, the 109th flies about 400 missions every season between October and February, Ankabrandt said.
Summer in the southern hemisphere can feature 24-hour sunlight and is the only time the temperature is warm enough to operate the LC-130. A normal year moves about 12 million pounds of cargo as personnel, fuel and other supplies arrive at McMurdo Station on C-17 Globemaster III aircraft
The 109th's LC-130s ferry the scientists, their gear and provisions to remote outposts on the frozen continent.
This mission takes advantage of the unique experience levels in the Air National Guard, since most aircrew on the South Pole missions have years of polar experience. It's not unusual for pilots to have flown the routes for more than 10 years and co-pilots regularly sit in the right-hand seat for at least three seasons before assuming command.
Maintenance personnel have been working on the same aircraft for years and know the "personalities" of their skibirds, history shows.
Experience is necessary said the 109th AW commander, Air Force Col. Timothy LaBarge. "There is a completely different way of flying the airplane in a polar environment, and you can't just take anybody and stick them up there and say, 'Go and do that mission.'"