PER-Antarctica-PER: over the ice in Ice.

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JohnM

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Tomorrow it's up at sparrow's and out to PER to board QF2906 for a day trip to Antarctica.

Scheduled departure is 0800 and return 2030. That should fill in the day quite nicely - especially as I decided to go the fabled Ice Class (B747 front cabin, window seat pairs) :cool::shock:. I am reliably led to believe that we only live once...

I have previously been to Antarctica by ship (http://www.australianfrequentflyer....hill-patagonia-chilling-antarctica-62166.html) so this should be an interesting counterpoint. We shall see.

The trip notes say that the aircraft will be under the command of Captain Peter Caws, that it will be his 17th Antarctica flight, that he will be assisted by Capt Greg Fitzgerald and an unnamed first officer and that Qantas has prepared 19 different flight plans to choose the best possible routing depending on the weather. The aircraft is expected to be over the Antarctic Treaty area for around 4h, with 2.5-3h over the continent. Flying will be at minimum safe altitude, which is defined as 2000ft above the highest ground within 180km, or 10000ft above sea level. The coastal plateau rises to 6000ft and the mountains in Northern Victoria Land to around 14000ft.

Three experts who have spent time at Australian bases in Antarctica will be on board to provide detailed information.

The notes also say that brunch will be served at about 1000h while dinner will be served on the homeward leg.

Now is probably a good time for some self-explanatory advance geography information:

AntAus globe.JPG

AntAus.JPG

AntAust size.JPG

Depending on the vagaries of the app, I may post some pre-departure pics but most of the TR will be post-event - the interval probably proportional to the number of champagnes consumed ;):cool::mrgreen:.
 
Awesome. Always been interested in doing one of these flights.
 
Oh you lucky lucky boy. I am so green. Would love to do one of these but like you would only go in the best viewing seats possible.
 
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Had the pleasure of doing one of QF's 1st (if not the first) 744 flights to return the Antarctic after the Air NZ Mt Erebus incident. The flight was a charter run by Croydon Travel and the routing was Sydney / Melbourne / Melbourne / Sydney back in November 1995. I still remember people complaining they weren't getting FF points for the trip.

The duration of the flight was close to 13hrs. Being pre - 9/11 everyone was allowed to tour the flight deck during the flight. The tech crew mounted a camera on the flight deck with the image being pushed through the entertainment system. I cannot be 100% sure but even without passengers and baggage we departed Melbourne at MTOW with 180 tonne of fuel. From memory the Captain at the time was Ray Heiniger (also CP for QF). John Dennis was also Captain on a number of the Antarctic flights.

Even though it was just over 21 years ago it was and still would be an amazing experience..
 
I saw QF flew big bird over for you yesterday JohnM. I had a geography lesson in your posts yesterday and started thinking there was a short cut to South America.
 
I looked for next year - clearly need to win the lottery esp if MrP wanted to go too. NYE trip too - I'm guessing it's light long enough to see everything.
 
Just checked pricing....hmm...Might save the $$ for an Antarctica cruise :) ps hope they clean the plane windows thoroughly!!

It looks like the only worthwhile seats are Business Class Deluxe - $7,499 per person.,,,,or Ice Class - $7,999 per person a la JohnM :D

Economy Class Centre - $1,199 per person (These are the two seats in the middle rows of the Economy Class section (seats E, F). Centre Economy seats do not rotate.)...no window seat? why bother??

https://www.antarcticaflights.com.au/Flights-to-Antarctica/Perth-26-January-2017

 
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