Future Events

Dates for your diary in 2024

Thursday 24th October at 7.30pm
DCPS Meeting with Jay Gates talk on 'Flying over Antarctica' at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, Plymouth

Aircraft

Note about our speaker: Jay joined the South African Department of Environmental Affairs in December 1981 as an Officer on the South African Antarctic resupply and research icebreaker 'S.A. Agulhas'.
His voyages throughout this period included Antarctic resupply voyages to the Weddell Sea, visiting the research stations of Sanae (South Africa), Georg von Neumayer (Germany), Halley (UK), and Dakshin Gangotri (India), and a Krill research voyage to Prydz Bay in the Australian Antarctic Territory. It also included voyages to lay ocean weather buoys in the Southern Ocean, and to service automatic weather stations on Bouvet Island and in the South Sandwich Islands. As Radio Communications Officer on the icebreaker, his role included Aviation Support, and I was responsible for Flight Watch whenever the Puma helicopters on the ship were flying. He was not aircrew, but made many flights on the helicopters. His furthest south by ship was 76° South, and by helicopter it was 82° South.