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I know some aircraft may land on iced surfaces. what are the difficulties associated and is this limited to specially designed aircraft.

enter image description here

Is there some conditions necessary for the landing and the next takeoff. Where are the main iced airfields currently active?

casey
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NormLDude
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    you mean this? – Federico Jul 09 '15 at 13:48
  • Gotta admit: pretty friggin' awesome! But I was reffering a normal plane/Jet Airliner/Sesna. Or anything that can fly +300mph – NormLDude Jul 09 '15 at 13:53
  • I've managed to find out two things about Antarctica: 1st "They don't want you there" , and 2nd:Around +30,000$ to visit. So yeah, someone might shoot a plane down if venturing on "government-property" like Antarctica.. Just like "Area 51", which is a no-fly zone last time I checked. – NormLDude Jul 09 '15 at 14:55
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    @NormLDude: Can you cite any sources for that? The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 (and still in force today) *specifically* bans military activity on that continent. (P.S. I have multiple relatives who have been to the Antarctic, both by boat and plane, as tourists and bonafide scientists) – abelenky Jul 09 '15 at 14:59
  • I just acknowledged a Naval presence of any sort, wether or not they would actually shoot a plane down or even be visible on a radar is not the question. It was about landing on the snow rift. – NormLDude Jul 09 '15 at 15:04
  • I took out the military stuff, just stuck with Antarctica fields. – NormLDude Jul 09 '15 at 15:43
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    I get where you're headed with the edits, @mins, but I think you've totally changed the point of the question. It now reads (to me) to be "What aircraft operate in the Antarctic?", where the original was "In an emergency could any aircraft land in the Antarctic?" – FreeMan Jul 09 '15 at 17:24
  • I'll leave it to the OP, as it's his question, just wanted to give my impression of it. Of course, there's already an accepted answer, and it seems to answer the original intent of the question, not the new one, so this may be a bit confusing now. – FreeMan Jul 09 '15 at 17:46
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    NormLDude (and @FreeMan): I may have edited a bit further than I should have (now that I look at it again, this is my feeling). Feel free to edit or revert to your own version. That was with good intentions, please accept my apologies by advance if the result bothers you. – mins Jul 09 '15 at 21:19
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    @NormLDude You should read this – Simon Jul 09 '15 at 21:31
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    @NormLDude Sesna -> Cessna? – DJClayworth Jul 10 '15 at 04:46
  • It's ok, still an interesting question. From what I'm reading, it seems very simple to get to Antarctica and that a person should have no troubles with any kind of military if a person should have to land in case of emergency. The primary idea/question was about the 250ft rift that can be seen in Antarctica, and if an airplane (of any type) could land upon it. – NormLDude Jul 10 '15 at 11:14
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    possible duplicate of How do aircraft land on snow? – kevin Jul 10 '15 at 14:30
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    Dude, stop totally changing the question!! – foobarbecue Jul 10 '15 at 15:11
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    "On the rifts?" What are you even talking about with this latest title change? Answering this question is like landing... on an aircraft carrier in high seas... except the aircraft carrier is sinking... – foobarbecue Jul 10 '15 at 15:58
  • @NormLDude if you have a different question to ask, then ask it in a new question instead of changing this one, invalidating the answers. – casey Jul 10 '15 at 16:49
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    While the general consensus is "Yes, any aircraft could use the Antarctic as an emergency airfield and land successfully", this report (mentioned by foobarbecue) indicates that it's highly unlikely that most aircraft would be able to make it there to land. – FreeMan Jul 10 '15 at 17:00
  • @mins There are many references to the Point of Safe Return mentioned for both 757 and Hercules aircraft flying from Christchurch to Pegasus Field. My assumption is that a flight would be diverting to the Antarctic on its way to somewhere else. There may be Great Circle Routes that fly over the Antarctic which would leave some of the Antarctic airfields within reach as emergency landing points. The specific paragraph is probably somewhere in section 2. – FreeMan Jul 10 '15 at 18:02
  • @NormLDude I now wonder if we've all mis-understood your use of the word 'rift'... can you give a coordinate location of this "250ft rift" you mention? – CGCampbell Jul 10 '15 at 18:16
  • @FreeMan: Thanks. I misunderstood, I thought you were talking about landing capability itself, not flight range. – mins Jul 10 '15 at 18:19
  • http://i.imgur.com/P6Soh.jpg , I hope that pic works. – NormLDude Jul 10 '15 at 18:43
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    @NormLDude That's just the edge of an ice sheet somewhere and it's clear that it is nowhere near 2500 feet high. The coast of Antartica does not look like that. These images are more representative. – Simon Jul 13 '16 at 17:59

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I've spent 6 summers in Antarctica (Mt. Erebus), travelling through McMurdo, where the busiest airstrips on the continent are. Most flights to McMurdo are on C-17s or C-130 Hercules. Some of the Hercules are LC-130 -- the L indicates that they have skis. The skis enable them to land and take off on some including ungroomed or poorly groomed snow / ice surfaces. Sometimes they need JATO for takeoff, though, if the conditions aren't great.

McMurdo has three runways which open and close operations during the year: Willy Field, Pegasus, and the Ice Runway. The Ice Runway is on sea ice and the other two are on the Ross Ice Shelf with Pegasus built on blue ice and Willy Field on snow. The Ice Runway breaks up each year during the height of the summer so it is carefully monitored. It bends downwards each time a C-17 lands. That deformation is measured and is one of the parameters that's used to decide when to stop using the Ice Runway each year.

Sometimes, planes designed for non-military use are flown to McMurdo; the New Zealand Antarctic program often flies an Airbus A319 there. As far as I know, a well-groomed snow / ice runway can accommodate any plane in good weather. A Boeing 757 flight to McMurdo from Christchurch had a scary incident recently where it was forced to land in low visibility because it didn't have enough fuel to "boomerang" back to New Zealand. The C-17s often boomerang due to bad weather. The Hercules, like the 757, don't carry enough fuel to boomerang, but they are better at landing in inclement conditions so it doesn't seem to be an issue.

For flights within-continent, Twin Otters and Baslers are in common use.

No, there's no military presence with offensive capability. I don't really understand this (recently added) part of the question -- did you think they'd hit you with antiaircraft??? There's a bunch of air force guys who operate the flights, and a single US Marshall in McMurdo.

foobarbecue
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    Worth noting that there are at least two ice-free runways, as well; the British one at Rothera and the Chilean one on King George Island, both off the Antarctic Peninsula on the other side of the continent. – Andrew is gone Jul 10 '15 at 12:21
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    "did you think they'd hit you with antiaircraft???" -- and anyway antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia, or the contiguous 48 US states. Even if anybody wanted to, it would be some military effort to patrol the whole thing (and from military bases where? Antarctica itself? Argentina?) – Steve Jessop Jul 10 '15 at 16:40
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Yes it could, same way it would preform an emergency landing any where else. There are ice runways out there and its not all that uncommon to see small GA planes landing on frozen lakes in the winter. There are considerations when it comes to breaking and what not but in the end of the day you have the ability to always land into the wind (since you are picking your touch down heading provided there are limited obstacles). Landing into the wind is also key as a result of some of the potentially high winds in the arctic and antarctic shelves. The largest issue is not knowing how thick the ice is. While I don't know an enormous amount about north or south pole geology the ice thickness varies and in some places could not support an aircraft landing. For the most part the south pole ice is very thick (9000ft) by all estimates, but the outer edges and the ice that does not reside above the landmass could be thinner. Keep in mind that parts of the arctic/antarctic are in total dark for a part of the year so you may be looking at nigh procedures when landing.

Interestingly enough, Antarctica actually has 20 airports so you may even be able to put down on a strip depending on where you are.

Dave
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  • The question is about Antarctica (South Pole). This response references the Arctic (North Pole) – abelenky Jul 09 '15 at 14:10
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    A lot of these points do apply to the south pole as well, but abelenky is right, the question is not about the North Pole... – Jae Carr Jul 09 '15 at 14:34
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    I doubt the original questioner specifically meant Antarctica, even though that name was used. After all a Cessna (mentioned in a comment) wouldn't reach Antarctica without refuelling, I think. I guess @Dave's answer was downvoted for pedantic reasons... – Andy Jul 09 '15 at 15:01
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    The answer has been updated to reflect information on both poles. – Dave Jul 09 '15 at 15:07
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    I dimly remember a plane having to visit Antarctica in winter, for an emergency Medevac, and that one of the problems was that it had to keep moving once landed or its skis would freeze to the ice. – DJClayworth Jul 10 '15 at 04:50
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    "Keep in mind that parts of the arctic/antarctic are dark for most of the year " - Not sure what you mean here. Ratio of day to night is the same in the artic as in all other places on the globe. Ratio of sun partially over the horizon to sun fully below the horizon is greater in the artics than closer to equator. – Taemyr Jul 10 '15 at 10:41
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    That is incorrect, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_night – Dave Jul 10 '15 at 13:12
  • @Taemyr See also: Midnight sun. Since Earth's axis of rotation is tilted (i.e. not perpendicular to its orbital plane,) during the winter at each pole, areas within the polar circles will have days where sun never comes above the horizon and days in the summer where it remains above the horizon. The closer you get to the pole, the longer this lasts. At the poles themselves, the sun only rises and sets one time all year, since points along the Earth's axis of rotation don't actually move as the Earth rotates. – reirab Jul 10 '15 at 15:39
  • @Taemyr While I haven't visited Antarctica, I have experienced midnight sun on a flight from the U.S. to Asia, which had a flight path well into the Arctic Circle. You don't have to be anywhere near the poles to experience very significant seasonal day length differences, though. I live in the Southern U.S. and even here, the sun is fully above the horizon until 8 pm or later in the summer, but only until about 3:30-4:00 pm in the winter. – reirab Jul 10 '15 at 15:44
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    @reirab: I think Taemyr means that totalled across the year, the poles experience the same number of hours with the sun above the horizon as anywhere else does. So, mentioning that the year happens to include some periods of darkness longer than 24 hours, and therefore that a night landing might be required in an emergency, is not really any different from mentioning that an emergency landing at the equator might occur at night. Yeah, sometimes it's dark. Like anywhere. It's once you land and stay there a while that the fact it's dark all "day" starts to matter. – Steve Jessop Jul 10 '15 at 16:23
  • And since the sun lingers close to or straddling the horizon for more hours at the poles than it does at the equator, actually the poles have more hours of passable daylight per year than the equator, so if anything a night landing is less likely :-) The antarctic is not "dark for most of the year", except perhaps in some deep valleys and the like, where the relatively low angle of the sun means they'd be even more shaded than the equivalent terrain at the equator would be. – Steve Jessop Jul 10 '15 at 16:28
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    @SteveJessop Ah, I didn't catch the "most" part in the post Taemyr was replying to, as it was edited to a correct statement before I saw it. I misread Taemyr's comment as denying polar night. Polar night does make a difference, though, when your only option for landing somewhere for a few weeks to a few months at a time is a night landing. That's quite different from the equator where it will always be daylight within a maximum of 12 hours from the current time. Of course, that matters more for intentionally scheduling landings than for emergency diversions. – reirab Jul 10 '15 at 16:32
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    @andy, The OP did mean Antarctica. It's becoming clear through their question history or comments that they are a "flat earth" believer. In order to support this, amongst the many other bizarre claims, they claim that Antarctica is not a continent but rather is a circular wall of ice.Anyone trying to go around the globe would instead go around in a circle on a flat earth. In order to protect the "secret", the elites of the World guard Antarctica with military force to prevent anyone crossing the wall and see that the Earth is flat.Don't bother trying to educate a flatter.They are beyond hope. – Simon Jul 13 '16 at 18:07
  • @Simon then better not tell him about that medical evacuation there a while ago - probably a secret military operation under cover. :) – Andy Jul 14 '16 at 07:51
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Any plane with tires.

When the ice is plowed it scratches it up and that provides enough of a friction that landings are fairly normal, like landing on concrete.

There are ice runways in Greenland that are used regularly.

Tyler Durden
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And even, a Hercules can land on ice:

enter image description here
Source.

They where built for landing on ice may sound crazy but they are built for land on all kinds of surfaces

mins
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Josef
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