Sunday, June 7, 2015

BnasRoberts simulator only covers 3/4 of circular Antarctica.



I just noticed that EVEN a simulator software company, BnasRoberts (see in index below for background info)... does not fly AROUND the entire island of Antarctica. Note that the simulated flights start at Theil Skyway, about 1500 inland from Rothera-- then continue from Rothera to Hally, to Nove, Molo, Davis, Casey, Concordia, Sitry, Zeccheli and end at McMurdo. EVEN the simulation guys after ALL their hard work on collecting data, ignored the defunct but possibly operating Russian station, Russkoya between Mawson and Rothera on the coast... and they didn't bother to plug in the LAST bit of mileage from Mawson, say, back to Thiel to make it a round trip. If they had, I would have been able to confirm that USGS data led BnasRoberts to believe Antarctican circumference is about 15,000 miles give or take. So now despite this giant effort, I can't even point to that. An entire 1/4 of Antarctican coastline is missing from the simulator!!!





Why didn't the simulator allow you to fly McMurdo to Byrd or Rosskaya, onto Siple and Rothera? Maybe I'll write and ask. 
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5 comments:

  1. felixJune 7, 2015 at 12:30 PM

    [for some reason I couldn't publish this in the previous post about Thiel]
    Seems like this guy is visiting Antarctica as some kind of tourist but has a very interesting bio....
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Michel

    So this Thiel fuel dump is somewhere between Patriot Hills/Union Glacier and the Pole
    http://static.7summits.ru/media/middle/0/464.jpg

    http://www.outsideonline.com/1857111/explorers-emperors-christopher-michels-antarctica#slide-3
    A Lunar Colony @ 79°46'S 82°52'W
    Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions (ALE) base camp is located on Union Glacier (UG) in the Southern Ellsworth Range. It's the ultimate place to get away from it all—your nearest neighbors are at the South Pole, more than 600 miles away.

    http://www.outsideonline.com/1857111/explorers-emperors-christopher-michels-antarctica#slide-6
    Six of us climbed aboard a ski-equipped Twin Otters [sic] bound for the South Pole. We were carrying tents, sleeping bags, and food with us in case something went very wrong. We lifted smoothly off the ice and flew 2.5 hours to a fuel depot located near the Thiel Mountains; essentially just 30 or so fuel barrels in the middle of a wind-swept plain.
    Our Ken Borek Air pilots jumped out carrying shovels and a small pump. After digging out the fuel drum, they refilled the Twin Otter for our remaining two hours to the Pole.

    http://www.outsideonline.com/1857111/explorers-emperors-christopher-michels-antarctica#slide-11
    After a few hours at the Pole, we retuned to UG for a day of R&R.
    ...no mention of refuelling again although it may have occurred.
    His video is not helpful just a collection of stills
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRlLQ9tCkXk
    but he does show the Ilyushin at Union Glacier.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmOxTiRdDUs



    Chris is certainly well connected:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2901372/Pictures-edge-space-Photographer-riding-U-2-spy-plane-captures-stunning-images-13-miles-Earth.html
    8 January 2015
    Photographer Christopher Michel was recently invited to ride in one of the spy planes to photograph Earth from 70,000 feet up - approximately 13 miles - and the resulting images are stunning and also a little hair-raising.
    Quite alone: When he took the pictures, Michel was one of 11 people that far from Earth. The others were astronauts living on the International Space Station and a Chinese capsule

    Remember in the late 80s, the U2 "spy" plane [another hoax?] overflew the Antarctic, allegedly, studing holes in the Ozone layer.

    But hey, NASA says by 2040 the big hole will be almost gone
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bWQQWvJymc

    Strange that the scientists never used "spy planes" again and went to using balloons....there are some interesting traces of their apparent circular paths in Antarctica here at about 38:40 and 40:00 [sound quality is poor]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM08Z4USaSo
    The Antarctic Ozone Hole: Looking for the First Signs of Recovery

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  2. felixJune 7, 2015 at 4:02 PM

    There's a report on those "circumnavigation" Ozone measuring balloon flights here:
    http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/blog/2010/09/30/lasp-researchers-launch-balloons-to-study-ozone-over-antarctica/

    [Labortory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO]

    Several paths are shown in close-up
    http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/balloontrajectorymap_full.jpg

    Notice they are shown to fly clockwise around the portrayed continent from McMurdo, over Russiya and the unclaimed sector first.

    Concordiasi website:
    http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/concordiasi/spip.php?article5

    The following web page has a list of links each showing a trajectory for a balloon
    http://www.lmd.polytechnique.fr/VORCORE/cciasi_balloon.php
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohilY0DEdA

    Several of these recorded balloon flights circumnavigating Antarctica are on this page [some nice photos too]
    http://www.lmd.polytechnique.fr/VORCORE/Djournal2/Journal.htm

    eg.
    PSC 16 payload. From our office window, we can see from where this balloon was launched, and less than 10 km away, where it landed. It is really an incredible piece of luck that the balloon flew over the station again after a 30-day journay around Antarctica.
    Here's the track of PSC 16 :
    http://www.lmd.polytechnique.fr/VORCORE/Data_cciasi/map10V16N35.png

    Yes unbelievably incredible luck! Such is the Vortex... So are these balloons really circling round and round Antarctica?

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  3. RickJune 7, 2015 at 8:18 PM

    That's an incredible find-- balloon fights all over Antarctica. I looked at many of your links and will try to create a blog post out of them in a day or two. What hilarity. I thought I had seen everything-- and now this. I guess this might open the door to a private mission of balloon flights to test time and distance. I have to admit, it's something that I hadn't thought about even though there were polar baloon flights in the past.

    If Antarctica is an ice rim, they'd have to be faking ALL of these baloon paths since I don't think any baloon is going to make it around a 60,000 mile perimeter using wind power and helium alone... though I might not understand the power of balloons-- weather balloons say-- to stay aloft for extended periods.

    I'll be thinking about my own weather baloon with some kind of tracking system-- gps?--

    You have to wonder, however, if GPS is giving falsified location data consistent with a spherical earth to hide the flat earth... that the GPS "data" is going to give you exactly what those balloon paths generated. I don't understand how that could be however because the time for a balloon to travel 60K miles would be impractical.

    Good find. Amazing.

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  4. felixJune 8, 2015 at 4:30 AM

    The Chinese have recently [Feb 2014] opened a new airstrip en route to Kunmun, near Dome A - Eagle Airport
    http://www.chinare.org.cn/en/newsDetail/?id=1302
    Antarctic Zhongshan station 806 km, and distance Antarctic Kunlun station about 400 km
    original Chinese report:
    http://www.chinare.gov.cn/CAA/gb_news.php?id=1492&modid=01001

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    Replies
    1. felixJune 8, 2015 at 4:37 AM

      Basler Turbo Conversions is pleased to announce that a contract has been signed with the Polar Research Institute of China to deliver a BT-67 aircraft to that group for environmental studies in the Polar regions. The aircraft will be equipped with ice penetrating radar as well as gravity sensing and mag sensing equipment to aid in the scientific evaluations. The project is under the overall direction of Dr. Bo Sun of PRIC and is a joint effort with Basler by Lake Central Airways of Muskoka, Ontario, and the University of Texas, Austin. The U of Texas has a long standing working relationship with the PRIC that will be expanded as a result of this effort.....The new BT-67 science aircraft is targeted for deployment to Antarctica for its first mission in late 2015.
      http://www.baslerturbo.com/news.html
      China is also sending its 31st scientific expedition to choose a site for the planned airfield in proximity to China's Zhongshan Station in eastern Antarctica, according to Tanzahou.

      Delete

Hi, I'm Captain Rick of the Virtual Circumference Voyage of Antarctica. I intend to prove definitively if Earth is flat or a sphere by paying careful attention to how many miles we cover as we travel "around" Antarctica. Flat earth theory says it's 50-60,000 miles. Spherical Earth theory says it 14,000 miles. Join me and ask any questions that you think would help our mission.