My job at the South Pole.

The South Pole is just a bit remote. It is 850mi from McMurdo and 3.5hr ride in a LC-130. It is possible to get here via land but it takes a month or so from McMurdo if you don't have any problems. This year the South Pole Traverse (from McMurdo to South Pole and back) was bigger then ever. The Traverse uses 10 tracked tractors and pulls everything they needed for the trip plus 150,000 gallons of fuel in 3,000 gallons bladders and other cargo that won't fit in the LC-130.

The South Pole Station has 4 generators that power the station but only 1 is running at a time. They also have alot of heavy equipment that they like to run 24/7. This equals the need for alot of fuel. This is where my job comes in.

The Fuel Arch is, well a arch, where there are 45 10,000 gallons tanks and the Fuel Pump House This equals 450,000 gallons of fuel that the station will burn each year. The Arch is a 30 foot tall arch that is buried under 10-15 feet of snow at the top of the arch. One would think it must be well insulated the with all that snow. Your right it will maintain -50F to -60F degrees year round.
But why doesn't the fuel freeze or gel? The fuel we uses down here is "AN-8" (JP-8 fuel with an icing inhibitor added and you get AN-8. JP-8 is kerosene-based.) You might be asking yourself, 150,000 gal from the Traverse and they burn 450,000 gal a year, where do they get the rest of the fuel?

The New York Air National Guard has 4 to 5 LC-130 Hercs in Antarctica for the summer. They fly cargo and fuel to the South Pole to fill up our tanks. Some flights we might only get 500 to 1,000 gallons others might be 3,000 to 3,500 gallons. it all depends on the amount of cargo they have. Then there are tanker fights that can deliver up to 6,000 gallons at a time but the don't have any inbound cargo on them.

When a LC-130 lands at the South Pole we as Fuelies have to marshall the planes into the parking spot so the fuel hose will reach.

Heres Fuelie Buttercup marshalling. This pic happens only about once a year. The temp are to cold for the Hrecs to shut down so the want to stay running. But planes do break and have to shut down so they can get fixed. As you can see a Herc in Fuel pit 2. The Hrec that is taxiing has some mechanics on it

The hercs store all there fuel in the wings and in the pod hanging under each wing. Buttercup has already hooked up the hose to the Herc and is watching for hand singles from the one of the flight crew at the fuel port. The Hercs uses there fuel pumps to off load the fuel in to our Flight Deck tank or to the Fuel Arch tanks.

Here's the lay out of fuels at the South Pole. The black building where the blue line starts is the Flight Deck Pump House. The blue line is the fuel hose going to the Fuel Arch. The plane in this pic is a Basler (DC-3) they fly to smaller camps and we have to refuel them. The large stainless steel tank is the Flight Deck tank it an hold 10,000 gallons.

Here's the grand pic of the fuel line and where it dives under the show into the Fuel Arch. It's about a 1/4 to a 1/2 mi long and it might not snow here but when the wind blows the fuel line gets buried and we have to dig it out.

After a couple weeks at the Pole doing the same stuff every day you have to spice some parts of the job up. Here I found sweet suit coat and it had a pipe in the pocket. The foam hands were hanging in the the fuels shack just screaming "play with me!!!" I put on my outfit and marshaled the the next Herc in to fuel pit 1.

When were not fueling or defueling aircraft we more then out fair share of jobs to do. At the far end of the Fuel Arch is a emergency escape door that leads into a 10 story set of stairs and to the surface. Because it's so cold here everything that doesn't see the sun is covered in frost.

Well the door was snowed in.

That day while digging stuff out we found a leak in one of the surface valves before it dives into the Fuel Arch. This could be a big messy project of replacing a valve or it could be as simple as replacing a gasket. We started with replacing the gasket and clean up all the fuel soaked snow and put some absorbents down.

Here I'm trying to get a good grip on a frozen gasket that won't bend so I can get it out. Note my tools of choice flat head screwdriver in one hand, channel lock pliers in the other, and my back up rubber mallet. I was hoping the 30lbs of valving wouldn't fall on my back.Good thing the gasket worked.

We had many other projects to do. But this is the jist of what kind of work I did at the South Pole.