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First person: behind the historic first flight of an A340 to Antarctica

After covering 2,500 nautical miles (4,300 kilometers) in just over five hours from Cape Town, Hi Fly's A340-313HGW registration 9H-SOL made history in early November by becoming the first aircraft in that family of four-engined Airbus aircraft to operate a flight in Antarctica.

As detailed by the company, this aircraft will be used during this season to transport a small number of tourists to the white continent along with scientists and essential cargo.

Hi Fly also shared the diary of Captain Carlos Mirpuri (also vice president of the airline), who was in charge of this historic mission.

We reproduce it below.

Hi Fly 801/802 – November 2, 2021

The crew assembled and left the Cape Town hotel at 5am local time. The shuttle took 30 minutes to the airport. The paperwork took another 30 minutes and we got to the plane at 6 in the morning, with two hours to go before our scheduled departure time.

The engineers and ground operations staff had left the hotel an hour earlier, so by the time we got to the plane, refueling was complete and cargo was being loaded. We were expecting 23 passengers, all of them customer staff, and since it was the first flight of the season, most of the ground support equipment we would need at WFR (Wolf's Fang Runway, Antarctica) was in our cargo compartments. The first two outings have the sole objective of establishing the operation in Antarctica, with a view to the 2021/2022 summer season.

The 2,500 nautical miles between CPT and WFR would take us 5h 10m to go and 5h 20m to return. As this was the first flight, with limited ground support, we planned a 3 hour turnaround at WFR.

It would be a long day for the crew, but the excitement of participating in such a unique event was above all else.

As always, we start with a briefing for the crew upon arrival at the plane. This is not just another flight, there are specificities related to this very remote operation that we were going to carry out, the harsh environment that we would be facing and the need to ensure that there was adequate protective clothing on board.

While the cabin checks and catering loading were underway, my crew and I would inspect the aircraft, check its systems, upload the route into the navigation computers, and report our departure details.

First Person: Behind the Historic Prime A340 Flight to Antarctica

Passengers arrived 20 minutes before the estimated time of departure. It was exactly 8am local time when we left the gate. Puntuality. Always. This is the motto of Hi Fly.

We lined up on runway 01 but had to stop for a moment before taking off; I detected intense bird activity on the runway and asked the tower to roll the truck in charge of scaring them away, in the end they got out of the way. The last thing we want is for a bird to crash and damage the engine on any flight. At 8:19 in the morning we were finally on the air. A beautiful morning in Cape Town and magnificent views.

There is no fuel in WFR. We carry 77 tons of fuel. The 9H-SOL is an A340-313HGW (High Gross Weight) with a maximum takeoff weight of 275 tons.

It is an airplane that complies, always. Robust, comfortable and safe, it performs well in this environment.

Its redundancy of 4 engines and its long range make it the ideal aircraft for this type of mission.

The route to WFR was almost direct, after complying with the instrument departure procedure clearance issued by CPT air traffic control. We were soon delivered to ocean-going Johannesburg via CPDLC/ADS, thus bypassing the tiring and noisy long-range HF communication that dates back to the 1950s. Digital communication is the norm today in most air navigation regions. We only lost the data link connection 250 miles before the WFR. But about 180 miles from the destination we were able to reach Wolf's Fang by VHF. It's not air traffic control, just a person with a portable handheld radio guarding the runway. And, indeed, they take very good care of their state.

South of 65 degrees we return to polar navigation techniques, using true heading as a reference.

A chart is also used to ensure we stay on course. During the route we receive via ACARS (another digital communication system), frequent weather reports from WFR that are passed to us through our operations in Lisbon. The WFR guys have an Iridium satellite phone, the only means of communication from that part of the world. The meteorologists do a great job, and we only launch into Antarctica when the weather meets our requirements. But a forecast is a forecast, and when you fly to the end of the world you need to frequently check that the actual weather matches the forecast.

The weather looked great, and as we near the top of our descent we're also supposed to get track friction reports. This is measured by a suitably equipped car, which runs the length of the track taking measurements every 500 metres. The frictions were also all above what we considered to be the minimum, so we began our descent.

Carrying fuel to cover both routes means that we would be landing with a maximum weight of 190 tons. Add in the fact that we operate on an airfield carved out of blue glacial ice, and it's easy to understand why the first landing of an Airbus A340 at that location attracted a lot of attention and anxiety. But in the main office we were sure that we had done our homework well.

Our operations department undertook several months of preparation for this flight, and the success of our first landing is testament to a job well done.

There was even a visit to WFR, on a business plane carrying scientists, two days before our flight, by Captain Antonios Efthymiou. It is considered a category C airport, and except for this first flight, the entire crew had observed a flight from the cockpit before operating.

The icy blue ice rink is tough. It can support a heavy plane on it. Its depth is 1.4 km of ice free of hard air. The most important thing is that the colder it is, the better. The grooves are carved along the track with special equipment, and after cleaning and carving a suitable braking coefficient is obtained; As the runway is 3,000 meters long, landing and stopping such a heavy A340 at that aerodrome would not be a problem. At least not on paper, as an A340 has never landed on the blue ice of the glacier before.

The glare is tremendous, and proper glasses help you adjust your eyes between the outside view and the instrumentation. The non-flying pilot has an important role in making the usual advisories, as well as additional ones, especially in the later stages of the approach.

It's not easy to see the runway, but at some point we have to see it, since in WFR there is absolutely no aid to navigation and from about 20 miles we must be in visual contact.

We finally figured out the runway alignment, and started setting up ahead of time, setting the flaps and landing gear to be fully stabilized 10 miles short of the runway. There's also no visual glide slope guidance, and the blending of the runway with the surrounding terrain and the vast white desert that surrounds it makes judging height challenging to say the least.

Cold weather altimeters also suffer from temperature errors, and need adjustment. All this was taken into account. We did a book approach for an eventful landing, and the plane performed exactly as planned. As we reached taxi speed, I could hear a round of applause from the cockpit. we were happy. After all, we were writing history.

The lap time was much less than the 3 hours anticipated. Our flight and ground operations did an impeccable job, as did our engineers. A true winning team. Equipped for the extreme cold, we ventured outside, greeted the people, saw details and places on the track for greater confidence in the system put in place. All seems well to launch repeatable operations to and from Antarctica.

Takeoff was uneventful, as was the return flight. The client was happy, we were happy. All the objectives of this first flight had been met. The event was recorded by our reporter Marc Bow.

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