BAS Twin Otter and Polarstern Helicopter visits to Halley

As you guys may know, Halley Research Station is the most isolated BAS base. Our two closest neighbours are the Argentine Belgrano Station, 650km to the west, and the German Neumayer Station, 790km to the east. Halley, in contrast to Rothera (which is another BAS station, located on the Antarctic Peninsula), doesn’t get many visitors throughout the year (we get very few flights in, and no visitors any other way). It is because of that that each visiting aircraft is a big event.

BAS Twin Otter visit

Yesterday one of the BAS Twin Otters came in from Rothera. It will fly out of Halley to the Theron and Shackleton Mountains, visiting the Ronne Ice Shelf on the way. It will drop people off at those locations for some field projects, and a couple of weeks later it will pick them back up and bring them back here to Halley.

Helicopter visit from Polarstern

Also, we had another aircraft visiting us today and this was quite an unusual sight at Halley. It was a helicopter that came in from the German research vessel Polarstern, which is close to the coast of the Brunt Ice Shelf at the moment. The helicopter came in twice, first to drop a few poeple off for a tour of the station, and then again to pick them back up. It was a 50km flight and it took them around 10-15 minutes each time to cover that distance. Some difference compared to my 4 hour one-way journey in the John Deere!