Clearance to Fly and Ground Testing Anonymous Tuesday, January 07, 2014

This morning we drove over to McMurdo base to discuss our UAV operations with Air Traffic Controllers and Helicopter Operations Manager.

We set out our proposed operations in the Taylor Dry Valley and discussed the way in which we could ensure the safety of all airspace users, i.e. helicopters.  Essentially, we will notify Mac Centre of our intentions to fly 24 hours prior to commencement and a NOTAM will be issued.  We will then use our SOPs and make voice advisory 30 minutes prior to launch and immediately before launch.  At completion of the flight, a further voice advisory will be made and when operations cease for the day, a final call will be made.

The whole purpose is to deconflict our operations and that of other air traffic.  To this end, some flights will be conducted after normal helicopter operations have ceased - there is no problem of twilight or darkness here!  However, we are coordinating our work with other researchers using the WorldView 2 satellite, so we will need to synchronise our flights with the passes of the satellite.

This afternoon, I assembled the Fox and GCS and went through the pre-flight checklist to ensure that the systems are working.  All appears to be in order, so the Pelican cases have been weighed and are ready to be transported to the Taylor Valley on Thursday if the weather permits.

We will be out of Internet coverage for the next two weeks or so; there will be no further posts until our return to Scott Base.

To give readers a flavour of our location, here is a picture taken at the Scott Base sign and one at the flagpole in front of the Base.

Preparations Anonymous Monday, January 06, 2014

We have finished our Antarctic Field Skills course, capped last night by a camp out at Castle Rock, about 30 minutes' travel from Scott Base.  It is such a privilege to be here in this spectacular place.

We returned to Scott Base this morning and since then we have been preparing for our deployment on Thursday.  I have checked the UAVs and GCSs and run some simulations.  This was not 100% successful and has caused me some concern.  Fortunately, we have e-mail access to NZ from the base, so I was able to dicuss the problem with Dr. Tim Brooks of Skycam UAV.  We appear to have sorted it out.

Tomorrow I will weigh all the equipment cases to determine the total weight for the helicopter loading calculations.

I hope that the batteries, systems and cameras of the UAS will deal with the cold temperature. According to the manufacturers' data, we should be alright. Another concern is the possibility that the bungee rubber could become brittle in the cold.

Though not strictly a UAV subject, I have attached a picture of the stunning view from my tent this morning at 06.00  It was much the same last night at 23.30 though the sky was much clearer.  At 23.30 last night, the air temperature was 1C, but it was 17C in my tent, the result of the sun shining brightly.  This morning it was around -1C, but the wind made it seem quite a lot colder.

 

View from my tent 06.00

The adventure begins - arrival at Scott Base Anonymous Saturday, January 04, 2014

I am very excited.  After a frustrating day, when the flight to Antarctica was first postponed and then cancelled due to weather en route, we arrived at McMurdo around 17.30 just one day late.  All the equipment had been dispatched two weeks earlier.

After the arrival briefing and a meal, we went down to the equipment cages and I was very pleased to see five Pelican cases with my name and that of AUT on them.  Tomorrow, after a survival course, I'll open the cases and test all the equipment.  There are two UAVs, two GCSs and a spectroradiometer.  We expect to deploy to the Taylor Valley mid week and hope to conduct some flights towards the end of the week.

There is a pleasant bar here at Scott Base and it is obviously an important place for information exchange.  I met a helicopter pilot and an air traffic controller, who provided useful information on flight clearances.  It appears that obtaining clearance to fly the UAVs in the Dry Valleys will not be a problem, provided that sufficient notice is given to all pilots and that the specific location for the operation is notified.

This place has an amazing ambience - the sense of history is tangible.  I'm sitting typing this short post in a computer room where there are scientific experiments running that were started in 1957 (the Ionospheric Vertical Sounding Programme).

Working here is going to take some getting used to - I am typing this post at 23.40 and the sun is shining brightly.  The temperature is a balmy 1C and the wind around 2 knots; ideal conditions for UAV flight.  Let's hope that the conditions in the Taylor Valley are just as nice.

Equipment going South Anonymous Sunday, December 22, 2013

A computer glitch has meant that Prof. John B. has been locked out of this blog for the last fortnight.  After many frustrating attempts, access has been restored.

This comes just in time: the Hawk and GCS have both been sent to the Antarctica New Zealand base in Christchurch for transport down to the ice.  Our new Fox UAV and a spare GCS have also been sent to Christchurch.

Skycam UAV have been very generous sponsors of our research, loaning us spare wings, repair items, replacement spars, batteries and motor, together with a complete GCS, so that should we have problems down there, we can continue to collect data.

Prof. John B will travel to the ice to take part in the K020 deployment as part of the New Zealand Terrestrial Antarctic Biodiversity Survey, using the UAVs to collect data on cyanobacterial mats in the Taylor dry valley.  This is a proof-of-concept project.  Using the vegetation stress camera and the two Sony NEX5-N cameras, the UAVs will survey the lake margins.  This is all new to John; he is a microbiologist, but has never worked on cyanobacteria, nor has he been to Antarctica before, so the 3 to 4 week deployment will be a steep learning curve.  This has been complicated by the unfortunate accident in which the AUT project leader broke his ankle, which ruled him out of travel to Antarctica this year.  However, if all goes well, the UAVs may be depolyed in future expeditions.

Since leaving Auckland, John has spent two days with Dr. Tim Brooks of Skycam UAV, training on the Fox.  The Fox is rather different from the Hawk, being a tailless aircraft, and is considerably easier to operate.  A different pre-flight checklist is used, but the GCS software is exactly the same, so type conversion is very straightforward.  As usual when John goes to the Manawatu, the weather conditions were not very conducive to UAV operation, but Tim and John achieved six training flights, collecting a large number of nIR and RGB images of part of the D522 area in Pahiatua.  The next flights will be down on the ice.  At least there are no trees there!

John hopes to keep colleagues and other interested UAV operators informed of the progress of the project via this website.