[Rhodes22-list] Believe it or not radar story

[brad haslett]

Here's a long addition to the believe or not story. 
The group that Stephen is talking about was in fact
successful in recovering an aircraft from the icecap
and the story was documented on National Geographic. 
Unfortunately, the A/C caught fire on take-off and was
destroyed.  The four principals involved were Norman
Vaughn from Anchorage, Mr. Epps, of Epps Air Service
in Atlanta, a NorthWest Captain from here in Memphis
that died a few years ago in a small aircraft accident
(name unknown but his son owns the private airport
near my home), and a fourth guy who I forget as well. 
Anyway, here's the story.

About fifteen years ago I was flying over the polar
route from England to Alaska.  When I boarded the A/C
in Stansted (London) there was a dozen yapping sled
dogs right behind the cockpit and an old man with a
beard that looked like Santa Claus, accompnied by a
pretty hot looking 40ish female.  I asked "you with
the dogs?" They were but I didn't have time to visit
other than the usual jumpseater brief because I had to
load the whole 10 hour route in the INS (inertial
nav).  After level-off I left the cockpit to pee or
get food or whatever, and the old man asked if he
could sit with us for awhile. He wanted to know what
part of Greenland we'd be flying over and how far we'd
be from the South Pole at the farthest point.  I
explained that we'd get to within a couple hundred
miles of the North Pole but the INS only goes to 9999
so we'd have to do some math or trick the box to
answer his question "Why do you ask, Sir?"  He went on
to tell us that he'd been to the South Pole with
Admiral Byrd as the dog sled leader.  Then he started
to ask about Greenland again.  It turns out, he was
the dog sled team leader for the rescue efforts for
the downed WW2 pilots and the Norden bomb sights.  He
was also the oldest participant in the Ididarod dog
sled race in Alaska.  At that time he was 85 and the
hot 40 year old was his wife.  FedEx, Lands End, and
some Alaskan cannery had sponsored him in a sled race
in Europe.  His name was Norman Vaughn and he kept us
entertained with stories the whole flight.  When we
landed in Anchorage, customs or agriculture started
giving us some grief about the dogs.  When they found
out it was Mr. Vaughn, they apologized and whisked us
through.  A year or so later, Mr. Vaughn wrote his one
and only book about his adventure to the South Pole
with Byrd titled "With Byrd at the Bottom of the
World".  A friend of mine was on a layover in
Anchorage during Vaughns booksigning event and asked
if he remembered the co-pilot from his trip over the
pole.  Mr. Vaughn gave me a signed copy of his book
with the following inscription inside the cover:

"To Brad Haslett, thanks for bringing me safely home
from Europe.  I have a new GPS which is hand-held and
I will take it to Ant-artica with me in 1993-94.  Live
Adventurously, Norman D. Vaughn."

Sometime in the last year or so I remember reading on
the net that Mr. Vaughn died.  He must have been near
100. Small world, huh? 

Brad Haslett
"CoraShen" 

--- Stephen Staum <staum at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I remember reading about a group that was successful
> in digging an airplane 
> (or several) out of the ice in Greenland.  It was
> several years ago.  SS
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Kaynor" <mark at kaynor.org>
> To: "'The Rhodes 22 mail list'"
> <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 10:27 AM
> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Believe it or not radar
> story
> 
> 
> >I just received this on the Tayana list and thought
> you lot might enjoy 
> >it -
> > it's an interesting read.
> >
> > Mark Kaynor
> > R22 "Raven"
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bruce [mailto:bcp at pappalini.com]
> > Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 8:56 AM
> > To: Tayana Owners Discussion List
> > Subject: [tayana] FW: Believe it or not radar
> story
> >
> > Okay, I know you guys are always up for a good
> story.
> > On the Baba listserv, there has been a lot of
> discussion about radar.
> > This story came out of that.
> > Enjoy.
> > --Bruce
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 12:15 AM
> > Subject: Believe it or not radar story
> > From: "Steven Hodge"
> > Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 07:57:47 -0800
> >
> > Well, heck, ok now that my arm is twisted.   I
> have heard this story from 
> > 3
> > independent sources, on different continents in
> fact.   After WWII the 
> > U.S.
> > was returning aircraft from U.K. and Europe.  The
> shortest distance is a
> > great circle route and this typically took them
> right over the Greenland 
> > Ice
> > Sheet.  A plane got caught in a storm over the ice
> sheet so they forged on
> > ahead, confident in the fact that their
> newly-developed radar altimeter
> > would keep them well away from the surface.  Sure
> enough the measurements
> > indicated they were thousands of feet up.
> >
> > Little did they know at the time--no one
> knew--that the particular 
> > frequency
> > band used for radar altimeters would penetrate
> cold ice (ice that is well
> > below the freezing point and contains no liquid
> water), and, in fact,
> > penetrates it quite well.  The reflection they
> were using was from the
> > bottom of the ice sheet, not the top.  And the ice
> sheet is about 3000 m
> > thick at the highest point of Greenland, so like I
> said they thought they
> > were thousands of feet up.
> >
> > Well the storm was buffeting the plane around a
> lot, visibility was zilch,
> > and they were going right into a strong headwind. 
> The cockpit crew was 
> > also
> > exhausted from long hours of flying.  It
> eventually dawned on the cockpit
> > crew that the loadmaster was standing out in front
> of them in the howling
> > wind, giving them the "cut-throat" signal that it
> was ok to kill the
> > engines.  The cockpit crew thought they were
> dreaming or hallucinating, 
> > but
> > eventually the loadmaster was able to convince
> them he was for real, and
> > they responded and cut the engines.
> >
> > The Greenland ice sheet is a huge dome, with most
> of the area being
> > essentially flat with most of the drop off near
> its edges.  It turns out 
> > the
> > pilot had unknowingly gradually flown right onto
> the surface of the ice
> > sheet, not being able to distinguish the bumpy
> sastrugi surface from the
> > wind buffetting.  The combination of extremely
> strong head wind, 
> > slow-flying
> > aircraft, and bumpy surface had in fact slowed the
> aircraft to a stop and
> > the crew out back had thought the pilot has simply
> decided to land and 
> > stick
> > out the storm, so they were merely doing what any
> good crew would do at 
> > that
> > point.
> >
> > None of the stories, by the way, give any
> indication of what happened 
> > after
> > that.  I presume they were able to take off again
> once they realized their
> > situation.  However, it is known that there are
> aircraft buried in the
> > Greenland ice sheet, and, in fact, some years ago
> (10 or so?) there was a
> > big effort by some aircraft buffs to locate them
> and dig them out.  I do 
> > not
> > know the results of that.
> >
> > Early ice-penetrating radars were in fact nothing
> but slightly modified
> > aircraft radar altimeters.
> >
> > When liquid water is present in ice, which is the
> case for temperate
> > glaciers, the RF energy is scattered to oblivion
> by the cavities of liquid
> > water.  In technical jargon, that is because ice
> and water have a 
> > difference
> > in dielectric constant of about 80x.  It was not
> until the early 70's that
> > we (colleagues and myself) were able to develop an
> alternate radar 
> > technique
> > to allow measuring the depth of temperate ("wet")
> glaciers.
> >
> > Steve, Panda 40 Alcyon
> >
> >
> >
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