The last of the airmen and LC-130 aircraft supporting the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic research returned home to New York last week. Members of the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing transported 3,900 people, carried four million pounds of supplies, and 1.2 million pounds of fuel around Antarctica during the wing’s five-month mission, according to a March 11 release. The wing’s six LC-130s—the only US military ski-equipped aircraft—began returning to Stratton ANGB, N.Y., in late February, but the NSF mission didn’t end until last week. A total of 500 airmen deployed to McMurdo Station in support of the operation.
Lockheed Martin projects more than a billion dollars of losses on a classified program, but company officials said April 23 they are confident it will turn profitable by 2028 and become a "franchise" system in the U.S. military.