Ms. Ishii’s 5th grade class at Thoreau Elementary in Kirkland, WA have been following me and sent me some great questions.  It is another condition 2 day at the airfield, so I wanted to take a moment and answer some of their questions while I had the time.   How did the plane break? -Annie The plane had mechanical problems on two occasions.  The first time, it had a problem with one of the skis that the plane uses to land.  I am not sure exactly went wrong with it but the engineer that works on the team thought it could be a hydraulics problem.  The airplane mechanics were able to fix that here at the airfield. The second problem was a problem with the fuel gauge.   It was not registering the correct amount of fuel.  To fix that, they had to fly it back to Christchurch. How long was the delay? – Jackson The mechanical issues have usually just caused small, 24-hr delays.  But the weather delays have been more of a problem.  We haven’t flown in over a week now– and that has mainly been due to the weather. How many people are with you? – Kierra There are 14 people members of the ROSETTA-Ice team in Antarctica.  We are divided into a day and night shift so we can run flights both day and night when we have good weather (and process data both day and night as well). And, for a fun fact, as of Nov 19th, there are 833 people in McMurdo. What is the most wonderful thing you have seen so far? – Katie Oh that’s a tough question to answer!  There are so many wonderful things.  But I think one of the greatest moments was when I drove out onto the ice shelf … Continue reading Questions from Thoreau Elementary