Airmen from the 109th Airlift Wing, the New York Air National Guard LC-130 Ski-Herk unit at Scotia, wrapped up the five-month 2013-14 Antarctic summer season by transporting more than 1,100 researchers and support staff and forty-three tons of cargo from the McMurdo Station base to New Zealand in late February. In the past, the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Program used C-17s to move researchers out of Antarctica as summer season ended. This year, however, the snow and ice runway used by larger and non-ski aircraft was too soft to support their weight. The 109th completed a total of 284 missions, fifty-seven percent increase over the usual workload. The wing scheduled up to seven missions each day during the season.
