In the springtime at Point Barrow, Alaska, days are long and at least one group of individuals were thankful for long periods of daylight; for this group—Project Ski jump by Navy designation—flew a transport R4D out over the Arctic Ocean and landed on it. All the preparations and the actual flights were most time consuming.
Project Skijump at its inception had a dual purpose: (1) to prove the feasibility of landing a ski-equipped plane on the Arctic Ocean, and (2) to provide scientific data gathered by two members of the Woods Hole Institute of Oceanography. With these goals in mind it’s evident that the plane to be used must be greatly modified in order to be practical. Therefore, it was flown to Quonset Point, Rhode Island, where the Aircraft Department went to work. It was a most painstaking job, resulting in a plane that later brought us through twelve successful landings on unprepared strips on the Arctic Icecap. Our Skibird was also a flying laboratory from which the two scientists were able to conduct a thorough study of the comparatively unexplored Arctic Ocean north of Point Barrow, the northernmost tip of Alaska. Only the famous Alaskan flyer, Ben Eilson, and Sir Hubert Wilkins have ever landed (unassisted) in this region and that was on their world famous flight from Spitzbergen.
With the plane and the crew at Point Barrow all was in readiness for a flight out over the ice. Today it was to be a return flight to Station 8, a beautiful stretch of ice about 300 miles northeast of Barrow. The mechanics had arrived at the plane early to heat the frozen engines (sometimes the mercury slipped to 40 or 50 below zero). They used a gas driven Stewart-Warner heater. From it warm air would be funneled through flexible tubes pushed through narrow openings in the snugly covered engines. After about an hour of the heat treatment, the engines would turn over and soon be running smoothly. The pilots and navigator were being briefed on the weather, but we knew by experience pretty well how the weather would be when we left our Quonset home. The skies were clear and the wind was blowing steadily from the northeast—signs of good weather. The Air Force has daily weather flights circling the North Pole from which they gather all types of aerological data which they pass on to us.
With all the preliminaries taken care of, it’s airborne time. Taxiing onto the metal matting, the pilot deftly maneuvers the plane in position along the southwest corner of the narrow, high snowbanked runway. While the engines are checked, a PBY Catalina lumbers down to take-off position. The old blue Cat, a Navy workhorse, is to fly coverage and provide aid if anything goes wrong while we’re on the icecap. With engines full up the Ski-47 slowly gains momentum and staggers off—all 30,000 pounds of her. The PBY follows closely behind. From the Point, a narrow strip of land-exposed peninsula resembling a crooked finger, we head out over the ice bound for Station 8. Already the navigator has determined the amount of drift and has given a plane heading for the pilot to follow. The Astro compass, a simple device that uses the sun in determining a true heading, provided the most accurate way of determining exactly which direction the aircraft was heading but the continual freezing over of the glass bubble in the top of the fuselage hampered the taking of sextant shots. This trouble was eliminated by winding a flexible tube up into the dome and giving it a blast of hot air. In flights at below 1000 feet it was extremely difficult to determine through the drift meter just how many degrees the aircraft drifts. Snow drifts (called sastrugi) running perpendicular to the direction of the wind were also helpful in determining in which direction the plane drifted.
The sight below was much the same as the tundra of northern Alaska—nothing but ice and snow. Large buildups of ice, called pressure ridges, were far more pronounced, however, over the Arctic Ocean. Sometimes the jumbled formations rose to heights of 40 to 50 feet. Occasionally wide leads would appear below. They seal up quickly though, for the ice—all of it—is an immense floating mass that is constantly moving, making it difficult to return to a former landing spot even though you have an accurate fix. To return to Station 8 it was necessary to call on the aid of electronic experts who fashioned a special 1½ watt transmitter which we used to home in on. The navigator would steer the plane out to within a 50-mile radius of Station 8 where the little red and green needles of the homer in the pilot’s compartment would point to the station. At the estimated time of arrival everyone on the plane would search for the red landing flags that served as markers. They were extremely difficult to see even though the plane was only a few hundred feet up. Once spotted, we’d circle and come in for a landing. Station 8 like the other landing sites was a beautiful, oblong, smooth-surfaced area which nature fashioned better than man. The ice is usually newly frozen over leads and is surrounded by pressure ridges that make the scene below look like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Since we’ve already landed at Station 8, we know the ice is over six feet thick and completely safe to land on. But landing on a new site calls for certain safety precautions. From very low we comb the area closely looking for cracks, sharp ice ridges on the landing strip, and indications revealing about how long the ice has been formed. The following are ways of determining safe landing sites:
(1) by noticing the size and thickness of the pressure ridges surrounding the proposed landing site.
(2) by observing the nearness of a lead and how thin the ice is alongside the lead (thicker the better).
(3) by detecting how much snow has accumulated on the landing site. Since very little snow falls north of the Arctic Circle if a considerable amount of snow can be seen it’s a pretty good sign the ice has been there quite some time and is safe to land om
(4) by comparing the color. Old ice is greyer.
(5) and last, by trying and praying.
The lesson of landing on thin ice was brought home very vividly when we landed on the ice the second time and had our narrowest escape. The ice was found to be only 18 inches thick and here we were perched precariously on top)—all 15 tons of airplane. Thereafter we scanned the proposed landing sites even more carefully. If the board of experts (two pilots and a scientist) okayed the site unanimously, we eased in for a touch-and-go—touch the wheels and then go around— and if satisfactory, we’d circle and land. The pilot would then taxi back quickly to takeoff position. The two scientists would leap out with a gas driven, six foot rotating conveyer belt type saw and knife through the ice. The pilot could note how deep the blade was sunk into the ice before water started gushing up the side of the saw. Then, if the ice was thick enough, the engines were cut and it was time for science. It was also time to find where we were. So the navigator busied himself with his sextant taking sun lines. Hourly he would repeat, so that by the time we left a number of converging lines on the chart would show our position. At Station 8 the ice was found to have drifted north northwest some 20 or 30 miles within a three day period.
Digging a hole in the ice came first. Below the door of the plane one of the scientists walked the saw into the ice from four directions and soon a rectangular block of ice was hauled out of the hole with a pair of ice tongs. Shovels and ice chisels were essential in dislodging the chunks especially when the hole was four or five feet deep. It took an average of an hour and a half to dig through the ice and have the water rise in the hole. One most unusual feature was the rise and fall of the water in the hole—-like a swell. It varied as much as eight to ten inches. Now that the excavation was completed the electric winch was started in the plane and a line was paid out through a pulley over the doorway. Attached to the line were, at various times, Nan- son Bottles, a net to catch any living creatures, and a bottom sampler to pick up mud from the ocean floor. Tests would be taken at different specified depths. Hours passed while the oceanographers worked tediously on this time-consuming job.
In the meantime, they were finding out how deep the ocean was beneath us. This called for dynamite to be set off so the seismograph machine could pick up and record the initial explosion. The needle jumps over on the graph and then detects the rebound echo and records it. From the distance between the explosion graph line and the echo graph line, the depth of the ocean can be accurately computed. To plant the long, cylindrical five-pound charge an ice auger was used, then the electric line was strung, and at a given signal the detonator pressed the button. Amidst a mighty explosion ice chunks and water fountained high into the air while the ice trembled. Usually a hole five or six feet in diameter was cupped out of the ice pack. Sometimes it took two explosions to reach the water. The ground wire of the I5 watt transmitter was dangled into the water. Then the radioman would change the battery and the transmitter would be charged for another three days.
All this time other work was going on. Strong, bitterly cold winds forced the use of a tent affair which fitted over a pipe structure from the door down to the square ice hole. The heat from the plane would then prevent the ascending water samples from freezing, thus assuring accurate readings. As long as eight hours were sometimes needed to complete all the scientific work.
Returning to Barrow had its problems to overcome. After everything was put aboard the engines were started. Since they were warm and had their oil diluted with gasoline to make the lubrication thinner, they turned over in a short time. It was thought that JATO (jet assisted take-off) might favorably be used to shorten the take-off distance. But it was unnecessary because the take-off areas were exceptionally long and a normal take-off was made.
When we flew toward Point Barrow, the ice below looked entirely different. Gone was the beauty and now it looked like an imposing, formidable gray mass that stretched on endlessly defying us to span it. Twilight lasts until late in the evening. This condition makes navigation difficult because the sun has disappeared and it’s too light to see the stars. The drift can be determined and the Barrow radio is strong, so eventually we find our way back. It’s extremely difficult to find the shoreline and only by experience can you pick it out with reliability because the tundra blends in so closely with the Arctic Ocean. A powerful, searching, sweeping yellow light was always a friendly beckoner.
Such is a typical day out on the icecap— long but both scientifically and aeronautically productive.