This week a Royal Air Force C-130J Hercules, operated by 47 Squadron, took off from RAF Brize Norton as it headed to Mount Pleasant Airfield in the Falkland Islands.
The exercise involves the C-130J Hercules conducting a series of resupply flights. The supplies are to assist important research deep into Antarctica. In order to extend the range of the C-130J, it will conduct air-to-air refuelling with an RAF Voyager, based at Mount Pleasant.
The Sky Blu base is a forward operating station located at latitude 75 degrees South in Southern Palmer Land, Antarctica. The name of the base comes from the area of blue ice that surrounds it, which is formed from extremely hard and dense ice that has lost the air bubbles that normally cloud the ice.
This C-130J, with external fuel tanks, has a range of over 3500 miles unloaded, with the Falklands some 7800 miles away, as the crow flies, it will be making a few pit stops along the way. The planned route, which will include equipment movements for another tasking, for ZH868 includes Gibraltar, Senegal, Ascension Islands, Rio de Janeiro and finally RAF Mount Pleasant.
In all, before the aircraft has even begun dropping supplies, it will have flown over 11,000 miles, a true workhorse for the Royal Air Force.
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