Pegasus Airfield

So as I mentioned before, Everyone has a "Kelly" day on the Fire Department. A "Kelly" day could be defined as, a day where you would be on shift, but you get the day off. The purpose of the kelly day is to be like a weekend. Since in theory one would have 2 days off, rather than just 1 day.
Unfortunately nothing is guaranteed in the fire service. One of the C-17's, which was going to land earlier this week, had mechanical issues. So the C-17's flight had to be pushed to my "Kelly" Day. Which means, that I would have to come into work to staff that airfield. The airfield that the C-17's land on is an Ice airfield. The Ice is very thick, greater than 20 ft, to support the plane. Since that airfield isn't running all the time, it usually requires a special crew from the firehouse. I don't mind getting called into work, I find work a lot of fun down here. It is way better than the Waambulance, no offense Action. Plus, the way that Pegasus flights work, it is a really short day. You are only called in for the flight and only the flight. Once the flight lands and takes off, you are clear to go home. So in theory, you could be home within a couple hours.
So the only issue is that the flight was leaving New Zealand, at 1500. Which means that it would be in Antarctica (Pegasus Airfield) at roughly 2000 hours (5 hour flight).

The airfield at Pegasus, is very small. (See the photo to your left) It is not like the town set up that you and I have seen at Willy Field. Since it is only staffed for C-17 flights and the occasional C-130 flight, it doesn't have a specific control tower that runs the whole field. Everything goes through the Fire Command on the field. If there is no current Fire stand-by operation, everything is logged and kept track of via our Fire Dispatch. Both keep track of all the trucks and vehicles on the ice-way and clear the ice-way when they need to. Once the plane lands, we have to be on stand-by while they unload and load people/supplies. Then once the plane has clearance to take-off, we wait a half an hour before we break down and go home. This is so that if the plane has to come back for an emergency landing we are here to handle the situation. Everything went without incident, this time. It was my first time out at Pegasus, so I was really excited during the whole take off and landing. I think it was one of the coolest stand-by's I have done down here.
I know what some of you all are thinking, "Why is it named Pegasus?" Well, here is a wikipedia article about it, "Pegasus Field is named after a C-121 Lockheed Constellation christened "Pegasus" which is still visible in the snow there. On October 8, 1970, the "Pegasus" crashed in bad weather. No one on board was injured. However, the plane remains and gives this place its name." You can still see the plane, but unfortunately I couldn't make it out there to get a really good photograph. So you will have to deal with that. If you feel really proactive, you could go onto google earth, to see the photo's of it.
After the flight left, unfortunately we discovered that one of vehicles, that was stationed down at the airfield was leaking out foam concentrate. This apparatus was just recently placed in service because it was thought that the leak was fixed. So, the group of us helped cleaned up the "contaminated" snow. Shortly after that, I was brought back to station 1, and released to enjoy the rest of my day (read: NIGHT) off. All and all it was just an 8 hour affair. No worries though, it was wicked cool to see that C-17 land and then take off back to Christchurch.
(Note: That photo to the left, is the C-17, warming up its engines...not a fire)




And that is the Aftermath of the C-17 taking off. Wicked awesome!