What a way to spend New Years...

[kinetic]

My brother sent me this last night.
How cool would this be to do?
A flight from Melbourne (YMML) to Antarctica in an A380.

Steve

[Kevnool]

Be cool with a window seat Steve, But very uncool sitting in the middle rows.

Cheers Kev.

[richardda1st]

My daughter Kelly tried to book one of those flights for new years eve but all booked out. She will be going later this month.
Apparently they swap seats (musical chairs) to share the window seat. But not the cheaper economy centre seats $999 & business class centre seats $2999. Best seats first class $6299 for a 12hour flight.:)

[Kevnool]

If only there was a landing strip because a flyover would be a good tease.

Cheers Kev.

[33South]

I did the trip in February 2006 for a belated 60th birthday presant to myself.
In a 747 in the upstairs bubble well worth it.:eyepop::thumbsup:

For the very happy snaps through the window....

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=7836

[leon]

That would be fantastic, but you would have to have a window seat.

Leon

[33South]

Yeah you bet, theres a rotation system between aisle and window.

[mozzie]

wow what a trip that would be !!!!! we had a quiet night in cleaned and vacuumed the pod earlier in day waiting for cloud to clear

[lacad01]

Defiinitely a fantastic way to see the new year in. Would love to do it one day :)

[Liz]

Yes, totally agree ... would love to do that one day.
Saw it on the telly tonight, and looked spectacular ... lotsa $$$$$ though.

[Hagar]

Much better way to spend New Years eve than me stuck at work.

[Chillie]

You beat me to it Liz. I saw it on the news as well.

[gary]

As 33South said in his title, "Just do it". :thumbsup:

I was lucky to have a window seat on a QANTAS 747 flight in 1999 and the
views of the ever changing types of pack ice, the icebergs, the black mountains
piercing the blanket of pure white and the vastness of the high Antarctic plateau
behind them is awesome.

In fact, just as when one flies over the interior of Australia and looks down
at that desolate vastness and then appreciates the futility of the early
European explorers who went trudging off into that interior, a similar feeling arises
when one looks off into the distance at the impossible vastness of Antarctica
and imagines how tiny the figures of men would have appeared against that backdrop,
hauling sledges up onto the plateau and off into that endless sea of pure
white nothing.

Since the Erebus Disaster, the commercial charter flights now fly at more
conservative altitudes, but the views are still spectacular and the
experience will be embedded in your mind forever. Highly recommended. :thumbsup:

[AstralTraveller]

Some friends won a trip on one of those flights a few years ago. Said it was spectacular. They didn't realise how many colours ice can have.

Maybe one day!

[OneOfOne]

Funny you should say that....

My wife and I were on that flight, in fact if you saw the 7, 9 or 10 news we were on all of them. The news crews must have been told to do most of their filming at the back of the plane so they don't interfere with the movement around the plane and we happened to be just 5 from the back! The best coverage WE got was on the 9 news where they happend to catch us bringing in the New Year with a bit of a smooch!

I did the same flight in 1998 in a 747 and I must say the viewing was much better in that type of plane. I had a centre seat with no window (as on this flight) but stood at one of the windows near an exit and had no problems at all taking shots. The windows on the 380 are quite small so it is a bit difficult to get the camera into a good position. However, we had a great time but with very little sleep. It was broad daylight at midnight and we were still looking out the window at 2am. In total I estimated we had 40 hours of continuous sunlight and only got 2 hours of sleep on the way home!

Anyway, here are a couple of our photos taken with nothing more than a 8Mp compact camera through one of the windows in an exit door...unfortunately they wouldn't let me wind the window down :(.

If you want to take one of these flights some time, don't be too concerned with not having a window as you can see plenty, it is much cheaper too.

[Octane]

That looks awesome.

Is there a link to a company that organises these flights?

H

[DavidU]

Wicked photo's !!!!

[Liz]

What the ..... !!!

Wow, good on you guys, very jealous!!!! Love the pics, including the ...guys with all the champers ;)
Maybe one day :rolleyes:

[gary]

http://www.antarcticaflights.com.au/

[Octane]

Thank you, Gary.

H

[gary]

Hi David,

... and so many different forms and patterns of sea ice, such as frazil, shuga,
pancake, grey ice and giant floes.

[Liz]

I can carry your camera, and hold your drinks Humayun ;)

[Octane]

lol, Liz.

I just looked at the prices and had a coronary.

Not for a long time yet to come, I suspect.

H

[gary]

Hi H,

Possibly the coolest "what did you get up to on the weekend?" story I ever
heard was from one of the principal mechanical engineers of the Anglo
Australian Observatory (AAO) here in Epping, Sydney.

Several years ago, Wildcard was under contract by the AAO to help them
develop some of the software for the IRIS 2 Infrared Camera.

One Monday, at morning tea in the AAO tea room at Epping, I asked casually,
"Hi Peter. How was your weekend? Get up to anything interesting?".

Peter then told me he had flown out to Christchurch, been outfitted with
a survival suit and put on board a USAF aircraft, flown to the South Pole
Base, worked on an astronomical instrument there, then flown back.

After picking my jaw up from the floor, he then told me he had got as far
as Christchurch the weekend prior to that but had to abort the journey to the
South Pole because of bad weather.

Apparently back in the mid 1980's, Peter was the first person to bring to the
attention of the Australian astronomical community that some of the best
observing sites in the world were to be found on the high Antarctic plateau and
had been a chairperson for an IAU working group to encourage the development
of observatories in Antarctica.

[Jen]

cool :thumbsup:

[richardda1st]

Hi All,
My name is Kelly, I'm just using my dad's username to post something on your forum.
A few weeks ago my dad mentioned I was going on the Antarctica sightseeing flight. Well I went and it was fantastic!
We were on the new A380 which is a really nice plane, very quite and smooth. You almost didn't know you had taken off.
Seeing Antarctica was an awesome experience. It is really beautiful. I've attached some photos for you that I took with my Olympus 850 SW 8 megapixle digital camera. It has a 6.7-20.1mm zoom.
Unfortunately there was a bit of cloud so that limited the amount of viewing time we had, but we still had about 1 1/2 - 2 hours so we got to see plenty.
I hope you like the photos.
Kelly :)

[gary]

Hi Kelly,

Thanks for posting these great shots for all of us to enjoy!

It certainly is a vast and impressive place, isn't it? So glad you have got to
see it.

Best Regards

Gary

[DavidU]

I think you made the old man proud !
Great shot's and great post.

[TheDecepticon]

Absolutely fantastic! I am truly mesmerized by the images and even checked out the old posting from the guys that went in 2006. It is somewhere I want to go. Great post! Great pics.:eyepop:

[Octane]

Aren't the wings on the A380 so cool? They just go on forever, and ever, and ever, and wobble.

Would love to see Antarctica one day.

H

[OneOfOne]

Looking at your photos, it appears you were just on the other side of the plane to me! I was sitting near the back and took most of my photos from the other side to you. Did you see them filming the segments for the news?

[richardda1st]

Hi again, Kelly here.

I'm glad you all liked my photos, I think they came out really well considering it was through the window and there was a few finger print smudges on it.

DavidU - I think my dad was more jealous than proud. :lol:

OneOfOne - I didn't go on New Years. I went just last weekend on the 24th of Jan. I was trying to book on New Years but they only had business class centre seats left and I wanted to be able to be near the window for that price. I did watch it on the TV and that made me even more excited to go. Definately would have been a great New year's eve!

I highly recomend this flight for anyone!

Kelly:)