Deep Freeze team departs for first-ever night vision goggle mission

Maj. Thomas Jensen, a pilot with the 97th Airlift Squadron, displays a set of night vision goggles that make flight operations possible even in complete darkness. Operation Deep Freeze is comprised of a Total Force team featuring personnel from the 62nd Airlift Wing and the 446th Airlift Wing. (U.S. Air Force photo/Abner Guzman)

Deep Freeze team departs for first-ever night vision goggle mission

Published April 11, 2008
By Staff Sgt. Oshawn Jefferson
62nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs

MCCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. -- From August through February each year Airmen here deliver supplies to the National Science Foundation in Antarctica. This season's final mission is in April and could result in the capability to fly missions to that continent year round.

Team McChord Airmen from the 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings took off today for their final mission of the season with a goal of flying the first-ever night vision goggle mission (to include a landing and takeoff) to Antarctica.

"This mission would allow us to provide support for the National Science Foundation year round," said Operation Deep Freeze Commander Lt. Col. Jim McGann, who is assigned to the 62nd Operations Group. "McChord has been doing Operation Deep Freeze missions for more than 10 years now and with this successful mission we will be able to ensure the increased effectiveness of the operation well into the future."

The U.S. military's support to Operation Deep Freeze began in 1955. Through this program, McChord Airmen provide airlift support in an extremely adverse environment, landing C-17 Globemaster IIIs on a six-foot thick ice runway to deliver supplies to the National Science Foundation from August through February each season.

So far during the 2007-2008 season, McChord C-17s flew 57 missions to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, from Christchurch carrying more than 3.1 million pounds of cargo and more than 2,800 passengers. On the return missions from the frozen sea shelf of McMurdo, C-17 aircrews flew more than 850,000 pounds of cargo and 2,700 passengers back to Christchurch.

Colonel McGann explained that the runway used at McMurdo was much like landing on Puget Sound's Elliot Bay in Seattle - if Puget Sound was frozen solid.

"Despite the environment in our aircrews flew into, landing and off- and on-loading people and cargo in temperatures at times (minus 58 degrees F) we didn't miss a beat," added Colonel McGann. "But we still have one to go."