Takeoffs and Landings

First off, Merry Christmas from Antarctica! Last night the station had its annual Christmas dinner, and it did not disappoint. There were so many choices for food, it would be impossible to try them all in a single sitting (maybe if you had a week). The highlights included lobster tail, prime rib, duck, some amazing mashed potatoes, and a medley of vegetables that included squash. In addition, there was a whole area of the dining hall dedicated to desserts! I’m still full from the feast and debating whether I want to go to brunch this morning.

Final preparation of Meridian before the flight

We were finally able to get off the first flight of the Meridian. After being associated with this project for almost five years (rather loosely the past three), I was incredibly excited to see Meridian fly for the first time with my own eyes. I’m sure during takeoff my heart rate would qualify as aerobic, but once in the air and after a couple of laps by the pilot it finally returned to resting. Our flight test plan goes as follows: a pilot takesoff, does a lap or two, and then we switch on our autopilot. In autopilot mode, the aircraft initially goes into a “home orbit”, which just means it will fly a circle about a point that we define until we tell it to do something else. That something else could include flying a different pattern or flying through specified points called “way points” (hence the term way point navigation).

It was so spectacular to see the bird fly, especially in autopilot mode. In the home orbit, our flight test lead would call out speeds and altitudes, and as the Meridian flew through the same points of the circle, the speeds and altitudes were always the same (they didn’t even differ by one knot or meter!). This is incredibly impressive, and the plane’s flight was so smooth. I should also mention we were seeing 50 kt. head winds during portions of our orbit!

After several orbits, we moved on to some way point navigation and then to system ID. For a system ID the pilot will put in a single command (say five degrees of aileron to roll the aircraft), and then you wait for the response of the aircraft to die out until it’s fly straight and level again. By doing the maneuvers like this you can quantify the dynamics of the aircraft. Without going into too much detail, this information is necessary for the autopilot to be able to fly the plane. We went through a series of maneuvers, and the Meridian continued to fly just beautifully.

Snow covered hangar (ours is the blue) after it went Condition 1 at the airfield

After the system ID portion of the flight, it was time to land so we could analyze the data and verify the system before we sent the plane over the horizon for the first time. Unfortunately, Meridian will not see another flight during this field season. During the landing the plane suffered structural damage that prevents us from completing more flights. And just like that, the field season is done. It’s hard to express how deflating it is that we won’t get the opportunity to fly the Meridian anymore this season, especially after such a perfect first flight. After we saw Meridian’s performance with the autopilot on, all of us were thinking about the upcoming science flights and how awesome it will be to see the plane fly off over the horizon.

With us grounded for the rest of the season, the only things left to do is pack up and wait for a flight off the ice. We’ve got the majority of our stuff already put away, and from what I understand if the weather stays nice we’ll be out of here by Tuesday. None of us expected our field season to end so abruptly, and I hope the accomplishments of our time here aren’t overshadowed by the disappointment of heading home early. Our flight was the best flight in the history of the whole program (minus the season ending damage). It was also the longest flight of the Meridian, at 50 minutes (although with the excitement of watching it fly for the first time, it felt like 5 minutes). We have two more planes waiting back home to be assembled, and I expect them to be back for the next scheduled field season to Antarctica.

With today being Christmas, we have the day off. If the weather stays nice, I’m hoping to get out of the station and go for a nine mile hike. Although we are already somewhat isolated from the rest of the world just by being in Antarctica, will be nice to get out of town for a while and see the sights with what time I have left here.