Flights Over the North Pole

[Palmpilot]

How pilots deal with radiation and flights over the North Pole

I learned something new:

As the aircraft climbs, the outside air temperature decreases. Nominally by 35 degrees Fahrenheit every 1,000 feet.

​

On a serious note, the article also talks about flight planning, and how low temperatures affect fuel.

 

[Sac Arrow]

"Aircraft departing North Pole, say direction of flight."

"South."

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

At a talk following one of his flights to the poles, Bill Harrelson (Lancair IV) related how his testing in cold weather pre-record attempt did not include many, many hours in frigid air....so he was dismayed to find his oil temps getting below 80°F near the end of the polar sections of his trips.

 

[NealRomeoGolf]

"Aircraft departing North Pole, say direction of flight."

"South."

So if there is a runway at the north pole, are all ends of the runway 18?

 

[Half Fast]

So if there is a runway at the north pole, are all ends of the runway 18?

Not unless you’re talking about the magnetic North Pole.

 

[AKiss20]

Not unless you’re talking about the magnetic North Pole.

Before my coffee so excuse the brain fog, but wouldn’t all the runways be 36? Imagine the magnetic North Pole in the center of a constellation of runways. All runway ends would be pointing north, not south.

 

[EdFred]

Before my coffee so excuse the brain fog, but wouldn’t all the runways be 36? Imagine the magnetic North Pole in the center of a constellation of runways. All runway ends would be pointing north, not south.

...with a 18 painted in the center.

 

[WannFly]

Just make it a round runway

 

[MauleSkinner]

Just make it a round runway

A square mile of grass, with the windsock in the middle.

 

[Jeff Oslick]

Not unless you’re talking about the magnetic North Pole.

If you're anywhere near the magnetic north pole, get a runway-number painting contract.

 

[Larry in TN]

Not unless you’re talking about the magnetic North Pole.

When you get up in those very high latitudes, runways aren't numbered based on their magnetic orientation. Runways, Airways, and even ATC vectors switch to True.

I used to fly to Thule AB, Greenland (BGTL). It's a US Air Force Base located on the northwest end of Greenland at 76°32' north latitude. The runway is 08T and 26T. The magnetic variation, at least when I was there in 2010/11, is 56°W. In addition to being a US Air Force Base, Thule serves as an ETOPS alternate for polar flights.

We would switch from Magnetic to True once established outbound from Upernavik NDB (UP) on the airway to Thule VORTAC (THT). We'd be non-radar at that point but Thule has a radar approach control (RAPCON). They wouldn't give us a squawk, though, as we'd be the only airplane in their airspace so we'd just stay on our oceanic 2000 squawk. (2000 is the generic squawk for much of the world's oceanic airspace) All of their vectors would be True headings. On departure, our clearance would include 2000 as our departure squawk.

I visited the tower once. They invited us up when we arrived. They were bored. Two Airman worked in the tower cab. One working all of the Tower positions and the other working the radar position. We were up there for about 2-1/2 hours and there wasn't a single aircraft operation during that time. We did see high-altitude overflights on the radar but nobody in their airspace.

Here's a couple of shots of taxiing in at Thule. We are on a 265T orientation. Temp was probably in the M30 - M35 range. Typical Air Force, there's one runway and one parallel taxiway but they send out the Follow Me truck!

A square mile of grass, with the windsock in the middle.

Grass? Near the North Pole?

 

[Palmpilot]

So if there is a runway at the north pole, are all ends of the runway 18?

As AKiss20 already pointed out, all the runways would be 36, because runway numbers are based on the course that an aircraft flies while on final approach.

By the way, it might be a seaplanes-only airport in the summer, since the ice that the runway is on might melt.


https://earth.google.com/web/@90,-1...907.15441927d,35y,-0.79755099h,0.37866051t,0r

Regarding Larry's post, I can see why the runway numbering up north switches to true. For one thing, the magnetic pole wanders quite a lot. (The current location of the magnetic pole is shown at the right-hand end of the yellow dotted line below.)

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml

 

[Larry in TN]

Here's an old documentary about the building of Thule AB. On the video they pronounce it with the soft "th" sound like "three". We pronounced it with a hard "T". Tool-ee

I was there seven times in 2010/11. One thing that really drove home how remote you were was that we were only allowed 30 minutes of internet access for our 21-hour layover! Those based there received a set amount of bandwidth per month. I believe the cap was in the megabytes.