Bags are packed and ready to go.
April 25, 2011: We left Lamont in the afternoon to Schenectady, close to Scotia where the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard is located that will fly us up to CFS Alert. That unit provides extensive logistical support for all U.S. science operations in the arctic and Antarctic regions. Without their help our operation would be much more complicated.
April 26, 2011: Early pick-up at 3am. Take-off at 7am. We had to refuel in Goose Bay/Canada, where the following picture was taken. You can see that the airplane we are flying with is not a commercial one. The plane you can see – a C130 – has been one of the work horses for military transport for decades and is especially useful under the environmental conditions found in the arctic region with very cold weather, snowy and icy runways (even landing on glaciers is possible).
The final destination for today trip is Thule, an Air Force Station in northern Greenland. On the way to Thule we passed the Baffin Bay that was filled with ice floats as shown in the picture.
