with ten tits, since Dan couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of him now. It was time to figure out how to keep all three vehicles together and make a 180 degree turn back to DYE-3. Dan had them lined up side by side. The flashing yellow caution lights gave off another eerie glow that significantly increased the pucker factor among the team. They could make better time flying in formation and have less white-knuckled steering with not having to worry about climbing up and over each other in a single file.
Dan made a slow turn to the right. Both the other snowcats were now running parallel ten feet apart and could barely see each other. The wind was whipping the snow horizontally. Dan called back for a heading check. The side lobe radar was losing them in the surface effect of the wind driven snow. Dan asked for the wind direction, thinking he could use the blowing snow as a reference for a relative bearing back to the site. However, the snow was swirling too much to get an accurate bearing. He went with his instincts and pressed ahead dead reckoning.
They were now out for nearly two hours doing about ten mph. The wind was now gusting to over thirty mph. Vince and Dave went back out onto the catwalk. The blowing snow was visible below them. It was still only a wind event. The stars were clearly visible above them. The temperature had dropped to ten below with a wind chill factor now of sixty below. Vince had an idea. Each snowcat was equipped with a flare gun with six shells each. He asked Dan to stop, open the roof hatch and fire a flare straight up. They should be visible if they were not too far out. According to the directions on the flare gun the flares would reach an altitude of 120 meters and burn for 8.5 seconds. They were about fifteen miles out now. Vince and Dave were fifteen meters above the surface and could theoretically cancel out the curvature of the Earth. The flares should be visible and it would be a simple task of walking the snowcats back to the Site visually.
Vince had every light on the station turned on, including every flashlight that could be rounded up and had them pointed in Dan’s general direction.
Dan opened the roof hatch and was immediately hit with a blast of cold air. His goggles froze over immediately. He was prepared for this and took a cloth he had pre-sprayed with windshield wiper fluid and swiped it over his goggles. Looking into the whiteout was like staring through a milk bottle. He lifted the flare pistol straight over his head and fired.
Both Vince and Dave saw the red flair instantly as it shot up on the northeast horizon. With his handheld brick radio, Vince gave Dan a relative bearing of forty degrees from his compass. It was impossible to estimate the distance. Dan looked at his compass and read the opposite direction of 220 degrees. He knew the magnetic declination was huge this far north and that they would have to trade relative bearings back and forth with each other after flare shots to make it back.
This process worked very well for the next hour and a half, after only five more flares were used. Finally, Dan saw one of the metal flag poles along the ice-runway. He followed them back toward the site and simply made a left turn up the taxiway and into the shelter of the maintenance shed. There, they broke out a bottle of scotch and thawed out.
Nobody could really believe what had just happened. Vince and Dave went to the console room. Vince banged out a simple request to NORAD on the Crypto keypad:
“Object vanished. Please advise.”
Dave was very much surprised when there was an almost immediate simple response. He figured the bureaucracy would delay any answer.
“Log event. Recover search crew.”
Neither Vince nor Sheridan knew how to interpret this. Evidently there was someone at NORAD that was taking the initiative. They would have had a “Please Standby” message if not.
“So, this is how it’s going to be. They’ve pretty much told us to ignore it in a polite way and not bother them anymore. Nice to know they are concerned about the crew,” Vince said.
Vince complied and wrote the event up in the daily site log. He even put it on the contacts and radar track sheet. He wrote it up with an interesting “spin.”
0030Z060685 ELT Activation
0045Z060685 Visual sighting of glow on northern horizon
0050Z060685 Contact NORAD HQ
0055Z060685 Contact Iceland
0105Z060685 Dispatch Search and Rescue
0130Z060685 Visual track west to east over north horizon
0200Z060685 Whiteout conditions – low level
0300Z060685 Object spins and climbs out to the northwest at warp speed
0430Z060685 S and R Crew Return to Site
Dave was a little more detailed in his daily report. He wrote three pages on the “event” and sent it in with his weekly activity report. Since he was not told to keep quiet and no Men in Black showed up, he simply sent the report in through normal channels.
The next morning all hell had broken loose at NORAD. Dave was not reprimanded. He was not chastised. He was simply summoned back to HQ Space Command at Cheyenne Mountain for a meeting with the commander. “Oh, shit,” he thought. “I’ve screwed the pooch. But hell, what were they going to do to me, send me to Alaska?”
The next morning a Raven showed up. It off loaded 3,300 gallons of diesel fuel, as well as food, and a heavier anchor chain to be used to smooth the ice runway.
He learned his lesson and did not stare into the prop wash as he boarded the C-130. The crew chief escorted him to the flight deck where he shook hands with the flight crew and strapped in. He put his headset on and did a com-check and was glad to see it was Major Rick Boop who was commanding this flight. He told Dave that they had about ten more minutes before departure. They were going to haul out a D-7 dozer back to Sonde for extensive overhaul.
Flying the C-130 on the Greenland Icecap requires special skills, techniques, and guts. The high altitudes at which the DYE sites are located reduces engine performance by as much as thirty-five percent. Lift also is reduced. Ski landings are similar to normal landings. However, takeoffs on skis are another matter. Skill is required to keep the aircraft lined up on the runway. Because of the friction of the skis on the snow, the runs are longer, especially on warmer days when the surface is softer.
The crew chief checked and armed the eight Jet Assisted Take Off (JATO) bottles attached on the aft end of the fuselage. Under heavy load and certain snow conditions, JATO bottles were often used to literally blast the aircraft off the ice. On this flight, the dozer weighed over 20,000 pounds.
Major Boop taxied the Hercules out onto the skiway. He said that there was another C-130 inbound with another load of diesel. It was circling the site waiting for them to depart. Boop radioed the console room notifying him that he was departing VFR direct to Sonde low level. This meant that they did not have to burn much fuel to climb with the heavy load.
“Raven Two, Sob Story. Roger, VFR direct to Sonde, two thousand feet AGL.” This meant they would follow the icecap at two thousand feet above the surface until they got back.
The C-130 prop pitch was tilted forward and the sound of the four big T-56 turboprops biting into the cold arctic air was reassuring. The C-130 accelerated and bounced down the skiway.
Over the headset, the copilot was calling off the critical airspeeds
