Patriot Hills
After a tiring few days it is great to catch up with some of your emails and questions. Patriot Hills is a permanent base in so far that there 
are people here all year round. However there are no permanent buildings and everybody sleeps in tents. There are a couple of communal tents for meeting and eating in. While we are here we are still using our own tents and we remain self contained. The air strip where the Ilyushin Jet lands is created naturally by the high winds that blow snow off the ice leaving a natural blue ice runway! The Ilyushin Jet takes off from Punta Arenas in Chile on a standard concrete/asphalt runway and using wheels (not skis) but then when it comes to landing here it needs almost perfect conditions to land. Unfortunately the wind that keeps the runway free of snow will also blow the plane off the runway and if the visibility is not good the pilots are unable to distinguish between land and sky. 
There is no air traffic control to guide the pilots and there are no indicators to show where the runway starts/ends or what direction they should land in. Fortunately, the Russian pilot and crew are experienced in landing on snow and ice. The ice runway is almost 3 KM long and in order to stop the plane the pilots shift two of the four engines into reverse and use their anti-lock brakes. Happy birthday today to Michael 12NB, Aalia 11GD, Anisah 11DV, Antony 11JI and Georgia 10PJ
