My first day in camp was pretty productive although long and I woke up ready for a good breakfast and I wasn’t disappointed. While at UG camp we are well looked after and the mess tent is the centre of social gatherings (and very warm).

It’s also the place to get kit and computers charged. The camp is completly powered by solar panels, batteries and inverters, so a it’s peaceful place with no generators running.

I met some climbers returning from conquering unclimbed peaks and routes in the area. Two ladies and their guide had spent 24 hours on their new route and were keen to give it a suitable name. “Infinity Curves” was the final decision after much debate – due to the endless false summits they encountered. The Ellsworth mountain range has so many unclimbed peaks it is a true mountaineering Mecca and also home to the highest peak in Antarctica – Mount Vinson, one of the severn summits challenge.

There was work to be done so I headed back outside and set up the base station for the Sirius Pro fixed wing UAV more commonly know as the drone. The goal was to fly the camp area and see if photogrammetry could be used to process the images to determine a new ground model. The DTM’s produced from satellite imagery are very poor when there is snow involved. The idea was to collect low altitude imagery and improve the camp ground model for future use.

I’m not an expert with the Sirius, but after making the first flight plan it was easy to see how bad the base models are. There was more than 80m height difference across the relativley small flight area. In reality the ground was pretty flat. With no base imagery or reference to go off, I was very cautious in making the first flight. I didn’t want to fly into the mountain ( I though it was a few hundred meters away, which turned out to be  more like 2km), or fly above the aircraft on the ground which is strictly forbidden. Fixing the flight plan at a constant elevation above take of I nervously launched the Sirius for it’s maiden Antarctic flight.

The 25 minute flight went very well and it was very quiet. Not what is expected of drones in camp which are typically consumer rotary types. I haven’t made that many landings, so I was cautious but the glide was perfect and the Sirius touched down smoothly. I’m more used to grass landings so I didn’t expect how far the plane would glide on ice! Obvious I suppose if I had though about it, so it was a walk to recover the Sirius and ensure the flight log files were transferred to my laptop. The first flight I set the altitude to approximately 190m to be very safe.

Unfortunately I had not recorded as many images as I had expected so it was time for some remote technical support via the GARMIN In Reach….

Client clam tents from above which were to be my comfortable home while at UG and partial shot of the long mess tent.