It’s hard to believe, but the arrival Oct. 30 at the South Pole of a ski-equipped LC-130 from New York’s Air National Guard unit, the 109th Airlift Wing, marked 50 years of military flights to the Pole. The aircrews conduct regular resupply flights to support the scientific research stations at the Pole and throughout Antarctica. A Navy crew, aboard a Navy variant of a DC-3 first landed at the South Pole Oct. 31, 1956. In 1998, the Navy turned over the mission to the Air Force.
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles, that would eventually be used for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.