No COVID!

 10-14-22

Exciting news today! I tested negative for COVID. This was the last hurdle I had to jump before I could be cleared to fly to Antarctica. All things being equal, which they rarely are here, I’ll be on a plane headed south tomorrow. It was another chilly, windy overcast day today. Everyone here is so professional and helpful especially considering they’ve had a back-up of people for several reasons. 

Here's an interesting bit of information. When I said we’ll be heading south, the aircraft instruments will indicate we are going north. Long before aircraft flew in Antarctica they flew over the north pole. To make navigation easier for airplanes they created a “grid” that they used to navigate. In the interest of “making things easy” a decision was made to use the same grid in Antarctica. So, we, as controllers, need to remember when a fixed wing aircraft reports north of the field he’s really south of the airport. 

I’m starting to get excited to get going. It’s been a long road to this point but it will be all worth it when I set foot back on “The Ice”.



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