Casey-Station

- 66.283055555556110.53305555556Koordinaten: 66 ° 17 ' S, 110 ° 32 ' E

The Casey Station is an Australian research station in the eastern part of Antarctica.

History

By 1959, the station with the name Wilkes station under the leadership of the United States was. In 1964, the research station was taken over by Australia and about two kilometers south, on the Bailey Peninsula, rebuilt. Upon completion in 1969 it was by Richard Casey, Baron Casey named ( 1890-1976 ), a major supporter of Australian Antarctic research. At that time, the station with sleeping accommodation and research buildings that were joined together by a corrugated metal tunnel, one of the most modern in the Antarctic. However, the increasing corrosion caused major damage and high costs, so that in the 1980s the Australian stations were equipped with steel frame and other durable material.

Present State

The currently 16 buildings of the station were opened in 1988, the old tunnel station demolished in 1989. The main building is the so-called Red Shed. Here housing, social rooms and the exhibition center are housed. Furthermore, building for storage ( "Store " in the " Green Shet " ), the scientific work ( " Science Building " ), the vehicles, power generation and water production exist. The latter includes a hot tub, which is operated by the waste heat of the water production.

Civilian flight connection

Since December 2007, a civilian aviation connection via the Wilkins Runway on blue ice, which removes about 70 km from the station and is four kilometers long and 100 meters wide. It was named after Hubert Wilkins, who flew over 1928 parts of Antarctica. The landing takes place on a surface of ice and snow. But the runway is regularly measured using laser beams and smoothed. Construction took three years and cost € 30 million.

The first landing of an Airbus A319 on 10 December 2007 was the first landing of a passenger aircraft in the Antarctic. Since then, there is a weekly scheduled flight from Hobart in Australia with an A319 the airline Skytraders. This flight takes about four hours. Previously, travelers had to rely on a two-week cruise. The flight connection is not tourism, but the transfer of the researchers and staff at the station.

Overflights of passenger aircraft over the Antarctic has been around since the 1970s, it crashed on 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 on Mt Erebus 2200 km away.