Pegasus Field

Coordinates: 77°57′48″S 166°31′28″E / 77.96333°S 166.52444°E / -77.96333; 166.52444

Pegasus Field
White ice runway at Pegasus Field
IATA: none – ICAO: NZPG NZPG Location of airfield in Antarctica
Summary
Location		McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica
Elevation AMSL		18 ft / 5 m
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	ft	m
15/33	10,000	3,048	Ice
Source: DAFIF [1][2]

Pegasus Field (ICAO: NZPG) is an airstrip in Antarctica, the southernmost of three airfields serving McMurdo Station. Pegasus is a white ice runway capable of handling wheeled aircraft year-round. The other two are the snow runways at Williams Field that is limited to ski-equipped aircraft, and the principal Ice Runway on the sea-ice available during the summer Antarctic field season.

The field is named after Pegasus, a C-121 Lockheed Constellation, still visible there in the snow after crashing in bad weather on October 8, 1970. No one on board was injured.

On September 11, 2008, a United States Air Force C-17 Globemaster III successfully completed the first landing in Antarctica using night-vision goggles at Pegasus Field.^[3] Previously air transport in the permanent darkness of the winter was only used in emergencies, with burning barrels of fuel to outline the runway.

References

1. ^ Airport information for NZPG at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.Source: DAFIF.
2. ^ Airport information for NZPG at Great Circle Mapper. Source: DAFIF (effective Oct. 2006).
3. ^ Rejcek, Peter (September 26, 2008). "Air Force successfully tests new capability to fly any time of year to McMurdo". Antarctic Sun. http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contenthandler.cfm?id=1544. 

External links

• The McMurdo "Pegasus Site" from "Airfields on Antarctic Glacier Ice" by Malcolm Mellor and Charles Swithinbank, CRREL 1989.
• Lockheed Aircraft R7V-1 / R7V-1P / C-121J "Constellation" "Connie"
• Installation of runway-Pegasus
• Runway Project Clears the Way for Improved Antarctic Airlift, National Science Foundation. February 20, 2002.
• Current weather for NZPG at NOAA/NWS