Thursday, April 17, 2008

To the North Pole and Back

High today: 28
Low today: -5

I flew to the north pole today.
The north pole you say??? Yes! In fact, over it, and around the world in less than a minute!
Got some last minute news on Wed. evening of going on the DC-8 with the ARCTAS program.

We flew over the frozen Yukon River...
Over the beautiful Brooks Range...
Over Prudhoe Bay...
Did a spiral OVER Prudhoe Bay and got within 250 feet of the ground...
Flew over thousands of miles of sea ice...
Got to hang out in the cockpit for awhile...
Watched the weather conditions and chemical traces changed as we descended and ascended through plumes.

Check out the video of the sea ice.. nothing exciting but it gives you a better idea than snapshots do.


I wonder how long this ice has been here.. a world of white and blue.
It was a long flight - about 10 hours long. Some people had to take a snoozer.
Jing took me down in the pit to see the PSU ATHOS laser.

"Hey do you guys see that dark line off to the right? I think it's the north pole.. it must have fallen over" - crew memberAustin giving a thumbs up for crossing the north pole. The GPSs on the plane went totally out of wack when we did this!
I went and sat up in the cockpit when we did a missed approach at Barrow. Henry gave me some pointers on getting some neat pictures.Barrow looks much nicer in the winter than the summer..
Sun sets around 9:30pm nowadays.
Another day well spent. I'll have a map of our route one I get the GPS coords. uploaded and made...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Juliiie! Too cool for words. Pun intended. :)

AP said...

Yeah, well, I can fly around the North Pole on Google Earth. SO THERE!!