Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
December 21, 2006
TACOMA -- A 14-member McChord Air Force Base crew braved deep-freeze temperatures of minus 21 to 29 degrees and tricky polar latitudes and longitudes Wednesday to complete the first airdrop by a C-17 Globemaster III plane to the South Pole.
The airdrop of 70,000 pounds of food and supplies for National Science Foundation researchers was the first by a McChord crew since July 1999.
Then, cancer treatment supplies were dropped from a now-retired C-141 Starlifter to treat a National Science Foundation physician stranded at the South Pole.
The C-17's joint active-duty and reserve crew dropped the load from more than 10,000 feet.
With the South Pole at 9,300 feet above sea level, parachutes needed 1,000 feet in which to inflate, Air Force officials said.
December 21, 2006
TACOMA -- A 14-member McChord Air Force Base crew braved deep-freeze temperatures of minus 21 to 29 degrees and tricky polar latitudes and longitudes Wednesday to complete the first airdrop by a C-17 Globemaster III plane to the South Pole.
The airdrop of 70,000 pounds of food and supplies for National Science Foundation researchers was the first by a McChord crew since July 1999.
Then, cancer treatment supplies were dropped from a now-retired C-141 Starlifter to treat a National Science Foundation physician stranded at the South Pole.
The C-17's joint active-duty and reserve crew dropped the load from more than 10,000 feet.
With the South Pole at 9,300 feet above sea level, parachutes needed 1,000 feet in which to inflate, Air Force officials said.