First Flight To South Pole Retraced

An LC-130H crew from the 109th Airlift Wing operating in Antarctica in November retraced the route to the South Pole taken by Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd and his crew exactly seventy-five years earlier. For the recreation, pilot Maj. Mark Doll and copilot Capt. Marc McKeon flew with the autopilot off and traded the controls just as Byrd's crew had done. Navigator Maj. Vinnie Wilson plotted the course using coordinates Byrd had written down during the original flight and navigating with a sextant. Unlike Byrd, the crew of Skier 94 landed at the South Pole, delivering equipment for Project IceCube, which will be the world's largest neutrino detector.