"The photo was taken on the return trip to Halley from A84. Halley being Halley V at Lat 75°S, Long 26°W, our base. A84 was an AGO, an Automated Geophysical Observatory, that the British Antarctic Survey was deploying in the southern 84th latitude. Quite far south from memory!
We were flying back, the lower cloud layer was getting closer and closer. I was in the co-pilot seat of one of the BAS DeHavilland Twin Otters. As the flight was a �night� flight, about 1am, and it being sometime just after the summer solstice the sun was behind us, hence the head-on shadow in the glory.
I remember the flight quite well; As I had the controls on the return leg, we picked up a low lying cloud base beneath us. This layer eventually came up to our height of 12,000ft. I remember flying through the valleys gaps between the peaks in the clouds, and trying to get the plane to climb over the ridges. Thankfully they were just clouds. At around 15,000ft we had to leave the game and enter cloud, as we were unpressurised and we were already above our acceptable cruise height."
Halo display at Halley V
|
