By ANTARA News,
Wellington : A US Air Force plane left New Zealand for Antarctica early Friday on a key mission that could pave the way for year-round flights to the bottom of the world.
The pilot of the C-17 Globemaster will attempt to make the first-ever landing in Antarctica using night-vision goggles.
If successful, it could change the lives of people who spend long, dark polar winters on the continent by allowing regular winter flights, Lieutenant Colonel Jim McGann, the commander of the New Zealand-based Operation Deep Freeze, was quoted by AFP as telling The Press newspaper.
If scientists could travel to and from Antarctica more frequently, it could boost the amount of research done, and would also mean winter medical evacuations could be carried out.
“At the moment we make that last trip in February and then don’t come back until August. If we can go in and out a couple of times a month, we can go and get people out or drop more people off,” McGann said.
Pilots have trained for 18 months in simulators for the night-vision landing on the 10-kilometre (six-mile) runway at the US Antarctic research centre at McMurdo Station.