WEST ANTARCTICA
The drone of the propellers is loud in my ears, and a faint vibration courses through me. My feet are stretched out under the tail of a helicopter, and my coat hangs from the landing gear. To date, this helicopter is by far my strangest flight companion. I am escorting an A-star helicopter to Pine Island Glacier at the far reaches of West Antarctica.
The helicopter will be part of a project to profile the Pine Island Glacier and to better understand the way it is moving and changing, and to understand its impact on the rest of the world. The project has been years in planning, and trying to move these helicopters has been two seasons of headaches.
The loading of the helicopters onto the aircraft went remarkably smoothly for both flights, as though sliding a helicopter into the belly of an aircraft is a perfectly natural thing. I am here purely as a spectator. I will spend nearly nine hours in the air for less than an hour on the ground. But the chance to see the helicopters reach their destination, and for a quick glimpse of the camp, it is absolutely worth the ride.
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