Well, I could never get Joleigh's video posted, so I guess I will have to make another one - they LOVED your pictures and stories.  You are very good at writing on their level and keeping them intrigued by asking questions!  Great job!  (Now, I'm gonna go look at that parka!)

Another BIG Airplane

Another cargo plane we got to learn about is the C-17 Globemaster.  It is even bigger than the Hercules!!  The C-17 is one of the very best cargo planes in the entire world because it can do almost anything!  This airplane flies lots and lots of people and big, heavy equipment from Christchurch to McMurdo to be distributed all across Antarctica.  We will see lots of C-17's in McMurdo, too!

This is one of the fire trucks we saw at the airport.  It was very futuristic looking!  I didn't get a picture of it before it drove away, but the seats inside look a lot like pilot's seats!

This is the C-17!  It's the big, grey airplane I told you about.  It can carry lots and lots of things!  It can carry several big trucks side-by-side.  It can even carry helicopters inside!  Can you imagine an airplane flying with a helicopter inside of it?  It is so strong, it can even carry 27 elephants if they wanted to!

We got there right after it had landed and they started unloading some of its cargo.  The orange generators are being unloaded onto a big machine called a K-Loader.  The K-Loader is a kind of special machine that has a flat bed with rollers on it.  Pallets can be pushed out of the airplane straight onto the K-Loader.  Then the K-Loader can drive around to wherever they need to put the pallets down at!  It helps make things go very fast!

This is the inside of the C-17!  See how big it is?  The back of the airplane has a giant door that can open up so things can be loaded and unloaded.  On the floor are lots and lots of rollers that help things slid in and out.  If they don't need the rollers for boxes, and they want to loads cars and trucks, they just walk through the airplane really fast and flip the rollers over.  Then the floor of the airplane is nice and smooth for tires to drive on!  Members of the New Zealand Air Force are helping the crew members of this airplane to unload.

 These pallets are holding "fruit roll ups"! They are big, thick rolls of heavy plastic. These will go down to Antarctica and become sleds! Machinists will unroll them and attach heavy metal frames to the front, just like an old fashioned tobaggan! Then they will put lots of fuel drums and equipment on on top of them and hitch them on to the back of lots of Hagglunds. Then drivers will take the sled trains over 800 miles from McMurdo, over the glaciers and moutains, all the way down to the South Pole! The mountains and glaciers have very deep holes and cracks in them called crevasses, so the drivers have to be extra, extra careful and drive very slow so they don't fall down inside one of them! It is also very, very cold and windy on the drive so it takes them a long time to get there! Last year it took 27 days for them to drive to the South Pole!!



This is how tall the inside is!  Can you see the ladder in the very front of the airplane?  What do you think is at the top of the ladder and behind the doors?

The back of the airplane is very special.  The ramp is also the back door of the airplane.  It can close very fast to help them do their work quickly!

And just as fast as they can close the door, they can open it again.  The door becomes a ramp for vehicles and people to come up on!

These are all the people I've been going to class with.  Many of them will be my co-workers in McMurdo.  Can you find me?

The New Zealanders like Americans.  They are our good friends.  They are all very excited about Antarctica and they like to ask us lots and lots of questions about Antarctica and how they can go down there, too!  The airport was having an Open House yesterday, and lots of people were "queing up" to see the great, big American cargo planes.  They were very excited to go visit them!

Thank you!!

Just want you to know that we are about to read your posts!!!  They look great!! We are excited to read what you have been doing!  Thank you for spending time posting!!!  We love you!

Going to School

We went to class at the USAP hangers at the airport.  We had instructors from the United States Air Force teach us about some of their cargo planes, and how to build pallets of cargo and load them onto the airplanes.

The USAP has a hanger at the airport where they have offices and classrooms, and space to store cargo and work on airplanes.

It is a very big hanger!

The New Zealand Air Force isn't very big, but they are very good friends of ours and they do lots of things to help our Air Force and our Antarctic Program.  There is a bird that lives in New Zealand and no where else - it is called the Kiwi!  The New Zealanders call themselves the Kiwis and their Air Force uses it as their symbol.  It's a very funny looking animal!

This airplane is the C-130 Hercules.  It is a big airplane and can carry lots of people or cargo.  It can also carry small trucks!  The C-130 is used a LOT in Antarctica because it can land on very bad, short runways.  Sometimes, it doesn't even need much of a runway at all to land on!  And if it's REALLY bad on the ground, they can just push the cargo out their back door and let it all come down on parachutes!  There isn't a very big runway at the South Pole, so they fly this airplane between McMurdo Station, where I will be, to the South Pole because it is a very good airplane for that.  We will see lots and LOTS of these airplanes in Antarctica!!

If Antarctica has lots of snow and ice, and not very many runways, how do you think it lands?

It lands on VERY big skis!!

The C-130 also has very big propellers to help it carry all that weight inside!

This is the inside where the pilots sit.  There's lots of instruments and gauges that they have to pay attention to!

This is the back of the airplane where all the cargo and passengers go.  It is very big.  What do you think can fit inside a C-130?

These are some pallets of cargo that might be going down to Antarctica.  Lots and lots of boxes, and even some gym equipment!

It also has a big tail that's painted bright red, so people can see it in the middle of all the ice and snow.

This is all the different layers of clothes a person has to wear in Antarctica to stay warm because Antarctica is the coldest, coldest, coldest place on Earth!  That's a LOT of clothes, huh?!  This is called our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear.  We have a great, big parka that goes on the outside of all of our clothes - we call it Big Red!  Underneath Big Red, we have insulated coveralls, a fleece jacket and pants, maybe another windbreaker, thermal underwear, a fleece gator to put around our neck, a balacava to cover our entire head and face, a fleece cap to wear on top of our balacava, ski googles to protect our eyes, thick wool socks, two pairs of gloves, and big, heavy boots with extra liners to keep our feet warm!  All of our clothes together weighs about 35 lbs!

This is what a person looks like when they have all their ECW gear on.  When I have all of my ECW on, I'll send you a picture of what I look like!!

Two Sweet Videos

The International Antarctic Centre and the USAP

The International Antarctic Centre in Christchurch is next to the airport and is the headquarters for many countries who do science research in Antarctica.  The United States Antarctic Program also has offices there.  It is also a place where people can go to learn about Antarctica and see many different displays and shows about the continent.  The can see real penguins there, go into a very, very cold room that blows snow and lots of wind where they can pretend that they are in Antarctica, and they can also go for a ride in a Hagglund!



The Christchurch Airport is very nice.  In front is this lawn, where lots of people like to lay on the grass and take naps and have picnics outside.

This is the Antarctic Centre.  It is across the street from the aiport.  It is very big!

This is where the United States Antarctic Program has their offices.

All the people with the orange vests are in the program with me.  We are walking down the street to our classroom at the airport.

This is inside the Antarctic Centre where people can go see different shows and displays about Antarctica.  What are all the different things you see in this picture?

This is a very big, heavy parka that a man wore each time he went to Antarctica.  Each time he went, he added a new patch!  He has patches all over the front and back of his parka!  He even designed some of these patches himself!  (Mommy, there's a very special patch his coat, but only you can look at it.  Can you find it?) 

This is a display about the man and his parka.

This is a Hagglund.  They are very interesting machines!  They have tracks intead of wheels so they can drive over lots of different terrain, including mud and ice and deep snow!  They can carry people in the front or in the trailer.  They can also carry lots of equipment in Antarctica, too!

There isn't very much water in Antarctica for the Hagglunds to drive through, but they can still do it at the Antarctic Centre for tourists!

They can go through very DEEP water!

These are the mountains to the south and west of Christchurch.  They are very pretty mountains with lots of snow on them!

This airplane is a fighter plane from World War II.  It is called the Supermarine Spitfire.  It was flown by England, Australia, and New Zealand.  It was a very, very good airplane.

I get to see this airplane everyday when I go to and from the airport!

The Trip to New Zealand

 These are some of the pictures I took coming down to New Zealand from Los Angeles.  We flew on an Australian airline called Qantas.  It was a very long flight across the Pacific Ocean - about 14 hours!  We landed in a city called Auckland, but we weren't there for very long.  We waited for about 3 1/2 hours, then we flew on a smaller airplane from Auckland to another city called Christchurch, where the International Antarctic Center and the United States Antarctic Program are.

This is the Airbus A-380.  I saw it at the Los Angeles airport.  It is the biggest passenger airplane in the world - it can carry over 500 passengers!  This wasn't our airplane, but I wished it was!

We flew from Los Angeles, California to Auckland, New Zealand all night long.  It the middle of the night, we crossed over the Equator!  We went from the top half of the world, to the bottom half!

Several hours after crossing the Equator, then we crossed over the International Date Line.  This is when we moved on day ahead of you back home!  My today is your tomorrow, and my yesterday is your today! 

This is the moon and the sunrise over the South Pacific.

This man is wearing a skirt, called a kilt.  He is from a country called Scotland, where it is traditional for men to wear them.  New Zealand is hosting the Rugby World Cup this year and people from all over the world are coming to New Zealand to cheer for their country's rugby teams.  I saw lots and lots of men from Scotland in the Auckland airport wearing their kilts to support their country!

The girl I sat next to on the flight was from New Zealand.  She was very proud of their country's rugby team.  They are called the New Zealand All Blacks, and they are one of the very best rugby teams in the whole world.  Their picture is everywhere here!  During our flight, they were playing the national team from France, and she was very anxious to know if the All Blacks won the game, or not.

When we were at the aiport in Auckland, guess who came in?  The All Blacks rugby team was finished with their game and were coming into the airport.  Everyone started cheering and clapping for them because the All Blacks DID win!  They beat France!

The rugby players were all very big men.  They were also very tired and sore, too!!  Rugby is kind of like our football, but a lot rougher!

It was a little rainy when we got in Auckland, so I couldn't get any good pictures, but it was very, very green and lots of pretty water!  We flew from Auckland, which in on the north island of New Zealand, to Christchurch, which is on the south island.  This is a picture of the small mountains outside of Christchurch to the east.  On the other side of these mountains in the Pacific Ocean.

This was our shuttle from the airport to our hotel.  We thought it was funny that our limosine was pulling a trailer for all of our luggage!

And this is our hotel where we have been staying at.  My room is at the very end of the driveway, the second from the right on the second floor.