Flight testing Lockheed's new C-130J
includes "natural icing" tests where the aircraft is deliberately flown
into areas where ice accumulates at high rates on the aircraft wings, tail
and other surfaces. In June, it is mid-winter in the southern hemisphere,
and the place for natural icing is the Antarctic peninsula and the southern
tip of South America. We chose Rio Gallegos, in the Patagonia region
of Argentina for its proximity to Antarctica, and for the facilities the
Argentine Air Force made available to us. Being suddenly assigned
to go on the flight test expedition to support communications, I quickly
prepared VHF and HF equipment packages, and of course included in my personal
baggage a sferics receiver, a VLF receiver, and a new sfreics antenna I
call the SpooLoop. Here is the story in an email message I began
while in Patagonia.
Since Internet and telephone access is difficult, I'm writing this one Epistle for all my friends and loved ones at home, and will email to all I have addresses for. To those of you who have sent email to argentina@altair.org, I am grateful for your messages, and have briefly replied when able to each one.
We are working very hard each day to complete the flight-tests for our assigned test conditions. Today, we are down for aircraft maintenance for the first time, so I will have some time to do laundry, write letters, go into "The Town", etc.
DOBBINS AFB, USA TO RIO GALLEGOS, ARG
From Marietta, we flew to Curacao the first day, staying in a beach hotel overlooking the crystal blue Caribbean. Tap water in Curacao is distilled sea water, very pure but expensive; you will be charged $3 per day to have water in your room. The hotel has a sand beach inlet in the rocky coastline, and many women go topless. One of our crew was found sitting next to where a well endowed young lady had been sunbathing topless, but the poor girl had fled the scene. We all expressed our disappointment with this crewman.
At 5 AM, we started our long flight to Buenos Aires. We were heavily loaded, in strong crosswinds, and the temperature at 27000 ft was about -35 deg, about 15 deg higher than expected, reducing the engine efficiency. Right out of Curacao we encountered heavy icing, and had to climb above it while still fuel heavy and crosswind limited. Then the #2 engine started losing oil. All this combined against us and our fuel fell short of Buenos Aires.
We skirted Bolivian airspace as close as we dared and after dark, we finally diverted to Resistencia, where armed officers boarded our aircraft and questioned us. Then a man and a young boy came out and fueled the aircraft, and we continued on to Buenos Aires in the night. At Buenos Aires airport, we took on an Argentine Air Force Captain, Sergio, and flew on to Palomar AFB west of the city. This was our longest flight day.
Our motel in Buenos Aires was very luxurious, I guess the better to shock us when we finally see our barracks in Rio Gallegos. We stayed one day for maintenance, but the hotel had no vacancies the following night, unless we doubled up, which we all voted not to do. That night I went into a bar asking for North American Test Pilot Carla Worthey. Carla was not there, but two pretty young local women offered to be Test Pilot Carla Worthey all night for $30 each.
While the aircraft was in maintenance, I had a free day in Buenos Aires. I met local ARRL liaison Claudio Fernandez. Claudio, who speaks pretty good English, took me to Luis Calabrese of the CNC, who upgraded me to "Classe Superior" on the spot, so I guess I've finally got my "codeless Extra" license, LU/N4YWK. In Buenos Aires, women's fashions are very short, tight skirts, which to me have never been out of fashion. The locals were wearing jackets and sweaters although the temp was pleasant to me. We found another hotel, and took off before dawn the next day.
We arrived in Rio Gallegos after dark in severe icing conditions, unloaded the aircraft and flew our first test immediately. On landing, we removed a one-inch thick cap of ice from the nose of the aircraft, and served it with Scotch whiskey.
IN RIO GALLEGOS
The days are very short, the sun rises about 10 AM, stays low in the north and sets about 4 PM. Breathtaking sunrises and sunsets last for hours in Rio Gallegos. Strong winds howl and scream all night, everything here is constructed to withstand gale force winds. Rio Gallegos is having a hot flash; the temperature has been above freezing, and the puddles by the road have thawed. Visitors here include oil riggers on break and tourists from Japan, Europe and the US to see the glaciers, the whales, etc.
The barracks in Rio Gallegos have electricity and water and heat. Heat is from old fashion steam radiators. The Argentines crank the steam valves wide open and just open the windows enough to keep from roasting. In a common room, beer is served for $1 until 11 PM. We have no telephone. Schedule on base is all oriented around the flight crews. The Argentines eat breakfast about 9 AM, lunch at 2 PM and a big supper at about 10 PM. The rest of the Gringos don't like this, but I love it.
"The Town" is about 8 km from the base/airport, situated along a saltwater sound. Rio Gallegos is the capital of the Argentine province of Santa Cruz. The Governors mansion looks like just another house in the US. Most houses are very small and are perpetually under construction. The residential streets would not appeal to typical norteamericano preconceptions.
The land is huge and primitive. There are three paved (asfalto) roads in the entire province. The rest are ripio (dirt road) or heilo (ice road). The next big town is 275 miles away. Sheep and cattle range the tundra, and the ranch compounds are spartan outposts in the wilderness.
SIPPIN' THE WEED
Argentines constantly sip "Yerba Mate" (say Jer-buh Mat-tay) They use an ornate little metal snorkel "bombilla" (say Bum-bish-uh) with a strainer on the end in a wooden cup or a gourd. They shovel in the weed, which looks like pot, add hot water, and sip the bitter liquid through the bombilla. Then they refill with hot water and pass it to the next person. Mate is everywhere, Argentines share mate with adult friends, family, co-workers, and the cup usually makes several rounds. The weed is cheap locally. Some gringos take it sweetened, but the natives prefer it "amargo" or bitter.
RELIGION
In Palomar, we took on board another flight crew member, Sergio, an Argentine Air Force captain. Sergio, a devout Catholic, took a small plastic figurine from his flight bag and placed it reverently on his instrument panel. It was an Argentine soccer star. The Argentine religion is FUTBOL or soccer.
NATURAL RADIO
In the barracks, the SpooLoop checked out well with the Rycom 6040 and with the LF LNA. After patiently enduring several days of work, I finally broke free one night late and walked about 2 miles across the tundra from the barracks with the LF LNA and SpooLoop stuffed into the oversize pockets of my company-issue Arctic Parka. The SpooLoop easily nulled out the weak local 50 Hz hum to reveal a nearly pristine electromagnetic environment.
With the Southern Cross shining hard and bright directly overhead, I listened for about an hour. There was no Aurora Australis or sferics that night other than occasional tweeks and pops, but I was captivated by the purest electromagnetic environment I have ever experienced. My hopes for Aurora and sferics observations soared, I vowed to return at the slightest hint of magnetic storm or aurora conditions, not suspecting this would be my last and only observation time.
THE GLACIER
After working seven days per week, we finally had two days off while Ice Angel flew to Buenos Aires for maintenance. Alejandro Kamann, an Argentine Aeronautical Police officer, had introduced me to some native friends. I ate dinner with them in their home, and the next day went with five Argentine friends in Alejandro's car to see the famous Perito Moreno Glacier.
Perito Moreno is the only glacier known to be growing. Every few years since 1932, it advances enough to block a huge lake and eventually the hundreds of square miles of water break through in a spectacular rupture. The last rupture in 1988 attracted scientists and tourists worldwide. The glacier is a breathtaking sight, and it "speaks" occasionally in thundering booms as icebergs break loose into the lake.
THE VUELCO
Argentine drivers exchange flashes of their headlights to signal "I see you." This is important, since on the long open roads most Argentines really don't care which side they drive on. After midnight, on the way back from the glacier we were making about 120 km/h when a big truck came head on running on our side of the road. The truck did not respond to our flashes, and at the last possible moment our driver averted a head on collision by leaving the road. We rolled many times and the little car was totally demolished.
We triaged ourselves. Everybody was bloody but alive and most were hysterical, which I took as a good sign, except one woman who was bleeding from the head and felt cold and sleepy, which worried me. We were alone about 160 km from civilization, and it was very cold.
After an hour or so, a car came by and took the small boy with a bloody head with his parents to town. I calmed and warmed the woman and her hysterical daughter, and sang songs for them and kept the injured woman talking, until an ambulance finally arrived for the rest of us. I had broken my left clavicle and several ribs just left of my spine, could barely move my neck and was bleeding from my head and left arm. So they tied me down on a board for a deluxe 160 km tour of the potholes of Patagonia.
At the hospital doctors decided I was "lesiones caracteur graves" and that the other passengers were ok. They were concerned about my internal bleeding, and tortured me by sticking tubes into parts of me I didn't know I could be intubated. The woman was merely dizzy from blood loss from cuts on her scalp, and had been subjected to my singing, but recovered well. Head wounds are tricky though, sometimes seeming much more or much less severe than they actually are.
The Argentine Air Force doctor gave me strong pain pills, and said not to mix them with alcohol. "Only beer and wine are OK," he winks. The trip home lasted two days by commercial airlines; a contractor, USAssist, had a series of doctors and international flight nurses accompany me. The second day an american nurse kept me so well medicated my feet never quite touched the ground in Sao Paulo airport. She got me into the US where my United Healthcare HMO promptly dropped me like a hot potato.
Now I am home, eating Percocet and sleeping in a chair each night until my bones mend. I understand now what it must be like to be old and helpless to feed or bathe yourself. I am grateful our lives are spared, and for the many old and new friends who gave their help and encouragement.
I commend my team mates one and all, the Argentines, and the USAssist program for the care and assistance they gave. Wish I could say something nice about my HMO and a certain administrator in my company. To my compadres on the test crew, and friends back home,
THANKS!
Will
