The Great Bird Herd

Well, that's just damned odd. I actually wrote something, answering your questions, but it looks like it didn't actually post. Blogspot must have eaten it. Weird. And in my posts list, it's there, but it only has the first sentence. It was a nice long post too, all about us getting mail today, and my being at Station 2, and seeing the LC-130.

Anyway, here's some answers. Out at snow school, they have a little wooden outhouse that is the bathroom. I honestly have no idea if it's a bucket or a hole in the ground or what, but I'll find out when I get out there. From what I understand, they give us radios in case something goes wrong, but they are fairly close to us, so unless it's a white-out condition, we can always run over there if needed.

In December, there are 4 more firefighters flying in, to help when we have to have both runways open. I'm sure we'll still be short-handed, but it won't be so bad.

The plane was actually moving when those cargo pallets got kicked off. They did it on the apron, not the runway. It was perfectly safe to land, so it was just pretty much training for them. I guess you have to be going a certain speed or something when you do it...I really don't know. But they landed fine, and then taxied in, opened the cargo hatch in the back and ran the pallets out. The pallets sit on top of rollers, that run the whole length of the cargo bay, including the hatch area. So all they have to do is drop the hatch, and un-lash the pallets from the floor. I don't know if they give them a kick or what, but they just come rolling out the door. I have some video of it, and it actually looks like the plane is pooping out cargo. It's kind of funny, really. Here's a shot of what the cargo bay looks like. You can see the lines of rollers on the floor. That's what the pallets sit on.


Nose art on the plane. Each plane has different art, and it's actually on the side, just past the door, rather than on the nose.


The C-17 that came in from NZ yesterday afternoon was carrying 14000 pounds of mail. So hopefully that will contain some of mine. From what I've heard, that's about half the poundage of mail that's still sitting in Christchurch. I'm planning on volunteering today to help sort the mail out, to get it done faster. Otherwise it'll be another week before the poor people in the post office get the stuff sorted.

We got to take a tour of one of the LC-130's yesterday afternoon. It was nice to see one again, since most of us haven't seen one since July in Salt Lake City. And talking with the guys on the ground crew who can tell us what would really happen if something were to happen with one of these planes, instead of the firefighters we had in Salt Lake from the 109th who really didn't know what would be going on down here.

Anyway, I had a really hard time falling asleep last night. I went to bed at around 11pm, but I don't think I fell asleep till about midnight or later. I was woken up around 0400 by everyone in the bunkroom talking and getting up. I thought we had a call...turns out the Tower was calling us to do a 'Wildlife Removal.' Seems that a solitary male (probably) Adelie penguin had decided to take a nap on the runway. With an LC-130 not too far out, he needed to not be on the runway. So we had to call dispatch, who had to call the captain, who had to call the NSF station manager, to ask if we could herd the bird off the runway. We got permission, and headed out.



At first, he started running away, just like he was supposed to. But then he decided he just really wanted to be on the runway, and started heading back that way. Those little buggers are pretty fast, let me tell you. And they are so funny when they run (I did get video of that!) We headed him off, and then began the stand-offs. He would stop, so we would stop, and we'd get a little closer, to try to scare him off. He would raise his wings and growl at us. (I don't have video of that, but one of the guys does, so I'm going to grab his.)




This went on for about an hour, until he finally headed off in the right direction. But wait, he angled himself towards the runway, and by the time we got back to the station, he was right at the edge of the runway, laying down again. So the LT and 2 others went out in the truck to get him moving in the right direction again. They finally did, and the Tower got the plane to land from the opposite direction, just in case.

So yeah, with only about 4 hours sleep, volunteering to sort mail, D/O class, and the Cape Evans trip tonight (maybe I'll see more penguins! And seals!), I'm going to be dragging tomorrow.

But it was worth it. And it was a fun way to get woken up.