Skier 21 and the Twin Otter getting loaded at the same time here at EGRIP.
May 21, 2024
Skier 21 and the Twin Otter getting loaded at the same time here at EGRIP.
Yesterday, flight operations where tough to pull off, while drilling started out managing to recover the first core of the season. Today the inverse happened, drillers tried another run, but quickly the drill shut down, ad a restart was not possible. When the drill was winched to the surface, there was no core in the core barrel. In the chips chamber a spiral structure of a refrozen mix of drill liquid, water, glycol and tar was found, suggesting a backflow of fluid in the chamber. Probably the loss of penetration is due to problem with slide contacts in combination with a conducting liquid mix near/at the bottom of the bore hole.
The flight operations on the other hand where extremely efficient, with Skier 21 bringing the final cargo for the Greendrill project, while the Twin Otter shuttled three loads of cargo plus an advance team of 4 Greendrill crew to their remote Winkie field site. Around noon we again had two planes simultaneously in our busy EGRIP airport, with EGRIP crew loading Skier 21 with retro cargo for Kangerlussuaq, while the Greendrill crew loaded up the Twin Otter for it’s second shuttle mission to Winkie. No issues with take offs today, as the skiway has been groomed one more time, and the wind direction was perfectly aligned with the skiway.
Again, today we ended the day with a celebration, as Susanne had her birthday. She treated us all to chocolate cake and port, a delicious dessert indeed. After yesterday’s practice, the Danish instrument song came off even better (or at least louder!) today.
What we did today:
Weather today: Sunny and temp. from -31°C to -21°C. Wind: 5-12 kt mostly from SW. Visibility: Unrestricted.
The spiral shaped frozen liquid mix in the chips chamber presented by Martin, Dorthe, Steff and Julien.
More of the mix in the chips chamber, this time with a tar/mud like surface.