In this age of modern air travel, it is relatively easy for anyone with the means to book a flight to almost any corner of the Earth. Unless that corner is Antarctica, a place where you cannot simply pave a runway and start landing planes. In Antarctic locations such as Union Glacier, the runway is blue ice: dense, intensely blue glacier ice formed when snow falls onto glaciers, gets compacted and recrystallizes. This is generally a place for cargo and military jets, such as the Russian Ilyushin IL-76. But commercial jets are making progress — and the Icelandic airline Loftleidir landed the first Boeing 757 on the blue ice runway at Union Glacier on Thursday.
In this age of modern air travel, it is relatively easy for anyone with the means to book a flight to almost any corner of the Earth.
ReplyDeleteUnless that corner is Antarctica, a place where you cannot simply pave a runway and start landing planes.
In Antarctic locations such as Union Glacier, the runway is blue ice: dense, intensely blue glacier ice formed when snow falls onto glaciers, gets compacted and recrystallizes. This is generally a place for cargo and military jets, such as the Russian Ilyushin IL-76.
But commercial jets are making progress — and the Icelandic airline Loftleidir landed the first Boeing 757 on the blue ice runway at Union Glacier on Thursday.
BY JESSICA PLAUTZ
NOV 27, 2015