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Camp TUTO

Sixty Years of Snow Runways

Posted by William Colgan on November 14, 2014
Cold War Science, Glaciology History / 3 Comments

About sixty years ago, in September 1955, the US Army Corps of Engineers conducted the first test landings of wheeled military transport planes on a prepared snow runway at Site II, Greenland. The 3000 meter (10,000 foot) snow runway was prepared by repeatedly pulverizing and compressing the ice sheet’s snow surface with low ground pressure tractors. Driving the tractors from Camp TUTO to Site II, high in the ice sheet interior, took several days.

Eight successful landings with a C-47 Skytrain, led to six successful landings with a C-54 Skymaster, and finally seven successful landings with a C-124 Globemaster. Landing the pug-nosed C-124, which has an empty weight of 45,000 kg (100,000 lbs), on prepared snow runways formed the backbone of ice sheet logistics in both Greenland and Antarctica throughout the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958). The slightly more nimble ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules, now a symbol of polar research, was not tested in Northwest Greenland for six more years.

So, perhaps a nod to the 60th anniversary of snow runways, without which ice sheet camps and their precious ice cores and other glaciological data would not be possible!

Correction: In an earlier post version I said the first C-124 usage of a snow runway was in September 1954. In fact, the snow runway technique was developed in September 1954, but the first C-124 usage of a snow runway was not until September of 1955. The 59.5th anniversary of transport planes and snow runways?

Polar Ice Coring and IGY 1957-58: An Interview with Dr. Anthony J. “Tony” Gow.

(skimmed from my upcoming Cold War science project.)

 

C124_icecap

A wheeled C-124 Globemaster unloading on a snow runway at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, to deliver a smaller ski-equipped plane in 1956 (photo by Jim Waldron; http://icecores.org)

C130_icecap

A ski-equipped C130 Hercules taxing at Dye-2, Greenland, after dropping of our field party for there weeks in the spring of 2013. (personal photo!)

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Camp TUTO Sixty Year Anniversary

Posted by William Colgan on September 30, 2014
Applied Glaciology, Cold War Science, Glaciology History / 16 Comments

Sixty years ago this month, in September 1954, the US Army Corps of Engineers completed its first summer of construction at Camp TUTO, Greenland. Camp TUTO was tucked against the Greenland ice sheet east of Thule Air Base. The gently sloping ice sheet adjacent to the camp, earmarked for vehicle access to the ice sheet interior, was named Thule Take-Off (or TUTO). Over the summer of 1954, some of the one hundred soldiers stationed at Camp TUTO built a gravel road up the first 1500 meters (4700 feet) of TUTO Ramp. Although that got them above the sometimes bare ice and slush of the lower elevation ice sheet melt zone, it still proved difficult to drive over the soft snow of the higher elevation ice sheet accumulation zone.

In official reports, the US Army Corps of Engineers tested “every off-road military vehicle (probably not excepting Hannibal’s elephants)” in the search for a suitable over-snow vehicle. The M29C Weasel, originally designed as an amphibious vehicle late in the Second World War, had proved disappointing in swampy terrain, but exceptionally nimble on the ice sheet. Although the Weasel was out of production even before construction started at Camp TUTO, it became a beloved backbone of US Army logistics on the Greenland ice sheet for almost two decades.

Constructing TUTO Ramp and adopting the Weasel opened up the interior of the Greenland ice sheet for a wide array of military engineering activities, including the construction of ice sheet runways and under-snow stations, as well as civilian science activities, including recovering the first “deep” ice core and wide-ranging snow and accumulation surveys. An auspicious anniversary of a ground-breaking project in applied glaciology!

(skimmed from my upcoming Cold War science project.)

TUTO_Ramp_in_1954

The view up TUTO Ramp, from the ice margin at Camp TUTO, on to the Greenland ice sheet in 1954. (from Nate Galbreath at thule1954.com)

Weasels_on_the_ice_sheet_in_1954

Modified M29C Weasels in convoy (left) on the Greenland ice sheet in 1954. (from Nate Galbreath at thule1954.com).

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