Latest news with #HerculesC-130
Condé Nast Traveler
2 days ago
- Science
- Condé Nast Traveler
How to Travel to the Most Remote Office on Earth
The plane is a Hercules C-130, super impressive. You arrive on this little bus, and you see this monstrous plane, and you enter through the back. Then you sit next to each other in these longitudinal seats. And then it's departure for a seven-hour trip without toilets, with a little snack, a lot of sound around you—just sitting until you see, for the first time, a bit of Antarctica. Concordia is more isolated than the International Space Station, 240 miles above Earth's surface. Photograph: ESA/IPEV/PNRA - A. Kumar You see these wonderful ice shelves from the little windows you have there. The first thing you see when you step out is just ice everywhere. You're really new to this environment, and sometimes it feels a little bit like being on another planet. There's an Italian station there, and we were supposed to stay for a day. But what we learned very fast is that, in French, we say, en Antarctique pas de pronostique, meaning, 'no forecast in Antarctica,' because the weather is super unpredictable. So, instead of staying one night, we stayed almost a week. This station is just a logistical one; it's not meant to host people, and everyone who stays there blocks others from coming in. It's a real logistical challenge for the people working there, so they want us to leave as fast as possible. But the weather is so unpredictable that you can't just take a plane and go inland. You need to wait until the weather is almost stable, and the pilot says, 'I'm ready to fly,' because he has the final word. I still had my data problem from before, and I was trying to connect to the internet. There, it was like the internet of the '90s—you know, beep beep beep. I tried to log in, and finally, after maybe two or three hours, on one computer, I got to the stage where it said, 'OK, I'm going to log in to your account so you can download your stuff. Please give me your phone number. I'm going to send you an SMS to log in.' That was the double verification, and it wasn't working because, obviously, there's no phone service. So I couldn't access my data because of this double verification. Finally, we took a plane. This one is smaller, a Basler BT-67 plane, which comes from Canada to fly within Antarctica and then goes back to Canada at the end of the season. This plane ride took four hours. It's a non-pressurized plane. You make sure to put all your clothes on, to be ready to go out in Concordia, because it's about minus 30 Celsius. We were super afraid. The first thing after landing in Concordia was this feeling of dizziness, vertigo. What I didn't know when I arrived there is that you're at 3,200 meters above sea level, so you feel the altitude a little bit. After four hours in this small plane, where you just see flatness of white, and nothing else, you come down to Concordia. From a distance, you see the station. That station seems so small because there's literally nothing around it—no mountains, nothing. And you have this little boulot dans l'estomac, as we say in French, like butterflies, because, you know, 'Wow, that's going to be my home for one year.' We came down to Concordia station, and the crew that had just spent a year and was now leaving the station, was awaiting us and welcomed us very warmly. They got us inside the station because we were sometimes afraid of high-altitude sickness. They want to make sure no one is carrying anything heavy, that we're not doing physical activity. They told us, 'Just stay calm for the next few days.' Concordia is accessible only by aircraft during the summer months, from November to February. In winter, temperatures plummet to minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Photograph: ESA/IPEV/PNRA - A. Kumar The station is made of two towers, with 18 faces for each tower. It's basically white, with a little bit of orange, and that's it. You enter through a tunnel between the two towers. You take off your boots and leave all your stuff there. It's quite small. Then you can go to the left, which is the 'calm tower.' Inside, you have the dormitories, the laboratories, and the hospital. It has three floors. The middle floor is dormitories, and the upper floor is laboratories. It's called the 'calm tower' to keep it calm. Then we go to the other tower, on the right side from the entrance. It has the technical stuff. On the second floor, there's the video room for movies and the sports room. On the top, you have the living room, the eating area, and the kitchen. In five minutes, you've done the tour of your new home. It's super impressive because you think, 'Someone had to build this in the middle of nowhere. Someone had to take the first steps.' And this is just incredible. So many people go to Antarctica with nothing. We arrive here, and we have the luxury of having this building to protect us from this environment. It's so out of this world to be there. We've seen a lot of pictures of Antarctica, and we've probably read a lot of books, but you've never been in the center of Antarctica, which is quite different. There's no life—no birds, no trees—there's literally nothing, nothing but ice and wind. A version of this story originally appeared on WIRED.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What to know about the US's Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after Iran's attack
Iran has responded to the United States' direct involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict by targeting its military assets in the Middle East. On Monday, Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced that bases used by US forces 'in the region or elsewhere' could be attacked in retaliation for US attacks on Iran's underground nuclear sites the previous day. Later that evening, explosions were heard over Qatar's capital, Doha, as Iran attacked Al Udeid Air Base, the largest US military base in the Middle East. Here's everything you need to know about Al Udeid: Gas-rich Qatar, which lies 190km (120 miles) south of Iran across the Gulf, is home to the US's largest military base in the region, Al Udeid. The 24-hectare (60-acre) base, in the desert outside the capital Doha, was set up in 1996 and is the forward headquarters for US Central Command, which directs US military operations in a huge swathe of territory stretching from Egypt in the west to Kazakhstan in the east. It houses the Qatar Emiri Air Force, the US Air Force, the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force, and other foreign forces. It houses around 10,000 troops. Earlier this year, The Hill, a Washington, DC-based newspaper, reported that Al Udeid's 'long, well-maintained runways enable rapid deployment, making it a critical component of US force projection'. The Hill also reported that Qatar's investment in Al Udeid has kept it 'at the forefront of military readiness while saving US taxpayers billions of dollars'. Over the years, it said, Qatar had spent more than $8bn upgrading infrastructure. The base has played a central role in air campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in humanitarian missions, including the 2021 evacuation of Kabul. On Monday, Qatar's Foreign Ministry announced it had temporarily closed its airspace amid threats of Iranian retaliation. 'The competent authorities announce the temporary suspension of air traffic in the country's airspace, as part of a set of precautionary measures taken based on developments in the region,' the ministry said. The closure came several hours after the US and UK embassies urged their citizens in Qatar to shelter in place out of what it said was 'an abundance of caution'. Later, news agency Reuters cited a Western diplomat as saying there had been a credible Iranian threat against Al Udeid since noon on Monday. That evening, Qatar's Defence Minister, cited by Al Jazeera, said the country's air defences had intercepted missiles directed at Al Udeid. Before targeting Iran's nuclear sites, it appears that the US started taking precautionary measures. As US President Donald Trump mulled direct involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict, news agency AFP reported that dozens of US military aircraft were no longer on the tarmac at the air base, basing its assessment on satellite images published by Planet Labs PBC. Nearly 40 military aircraft – including transport planes like the Hercules C-130 and reconnaissance aircraft – were parked on the tarmac at the base, the regional headquarters of the Pentagon's Central Command, on June 5. But in an image taken on June 19, only three aircraft were visible. One US official who spoke to Reuters said aircraft that were not in hardened shelters had been moved from Al Udeid base. Additionally, he said US Navy vessels had been moved from a port in Bahrain, where the US military's 5th fleet is located. 'It is not an uncommon practice,' the official said. 'Force protection is the priority.' No. Prior to the US attack on nuclear sites on Sunday, it was reported that B-2 bombers were heading to Guam – a ruse, as it turned out. As all eyes looked West, seven B-2 stealth bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri in the US at 00:01 EDT (04:01 GMT), according to the Pentagon. The top-secret flights flew straight over the Atlantic to Iran. None of the US bases in the Middle East were deployed in the US offensive on Iran. Qatar condemned the attack on the air base, calling it a 'flagrant violation' of its sovereignty. 'We express the State of Qatar's strong condemnation of the attack on Al Udeid Air Base by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and consider it a flagrant violation of the State of Qatar's sovereignty and airspace, as well as of international law,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said in a statement. Iran and Qatar enjoy fraternal diplomatic relations. Qatar has condemned the US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites.
Iraqi News
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Iraqi News
US military aircraft no longer visible at base in Qatar
Washington – Dozens of US military aircraft are no longer on the tarmac at a major US base in Qatar, satellite images show — a possible move to shield them from eventual Iranian air strikes, as Washington weighs whether to intervene in Tehran's conflict with Israel. Between June 5 and 19, nearly all of the aircraft visible at the Al Udeid base are no longer anywhere in plain sight, according to images published by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by AFP. Nearly 40 military aircraft — including transport planes like the Hercules C-130 and reconnaissance aircraft — were parked on the tarmac on June 5. In an image taken on June 19, only three aircraft are visible. The US embassy in Qatar announced Thursday that access to the base would be limited 'out of an abundance of caution and in light of ongoing regional hostilities,' and urged personnel to 'exercise increased vigilance.' The White House says US President Donald Trump will decide sometime in the next two weeks whether to join ally Israel's strikes on Iran. The Islamic republic could then respond by striking US bases in the region. Mark Schwartz, a former lieutenant general in the US Army and a defense researcher at the Rand Corporation, said the personnel, aircraft and installations at Al Udeid would be 'extremely vulnerable' given its 'close proximity' to Iran. Schwartz, who served in the Middle East, told AFP that even shrapnel could render the aircraft 'non-mission capable.' 'You want to reduce risk to US forces, both personnel and equipment,' he said. The planes that have left the tarmac since early June could have been moved to hangars or to other bases in the region. The US military did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment. US forces in the Middle East have been mobilized since Israel's first strikes on Iran nearly a week ago, with an additional aircraft carrier en route and significant aircraft movement. An AFP analysis of open source data tracking aircraft positioning showed that at least 27 military refueling planes — KC-46A Pegasus and KC-135 Stratotanker planes — traveled from the United States to Europe from June 15-18. Twenty-five of them were still in Europe as of late Wednesday, with only two returning to American soil, the data showed.
Time of India
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Israel-Iran conflict: US removes warplanes from Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar; see satellite images
Al Udeid Air Base outside of Doha, Qatar, after many aircraft on its tarmac left, June 18, 2025 (left), and a MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter hovering over the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier while operating in the Middle East. (AP) Satellite images show that dozens of US military aircraft are no longer visible on the tarmac at a major US base in Qatar, news agency AFP reported. This may be a step to protect them from possible Iranian air strikes, as the United States considers whether to join Israel in its ongoing conflict with Iran in the Middle East. Images from Planet Labs PBC on June 5, the AFP report says, showed nearly 40 military aircraft at Al Udeid Air Base. These included transport aircraft like the Hercules C-130 and reconnaissance planes. By June 19, a new image showed only three aircraft visible on the tarmac. The US embassy in Qatar said Thursday that access to the base would be limited "out of an abundance of caution and in light of ongoing regional hostilities," and asked personnel to "exercise increased vigilance." — sentdefender (@sentdefender) The White House said on Thursday that US President Donald Trump will make a decision in the next two weeks on whether to support Israel's military strikes on Iran. Iran may respond by targeting US bases in the region. "He will make a decision within the next two weeks" about taking a direct military role in the conflict, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a press briefing. Aircraft, personnel, and facilities at Al Udeid base would be "extremely vulnerable" due to its "close proximity" to Iran, Mark Schwartz, a former US Army lieutenant general and defense researcher at the Rand Corporation, was quoted as saying by the AFP. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like They Were So Beautiful Before; Now Look At Them; Number 10 Will Shock You Reportingly Undo Schwartz, who has served in the Middle East, told AFP that even shrapnel could make the aircraft "non-mission capable." "You want to reduce risk to US forces, both personnel and equipment," he said. The aircraft that are no longer visible on the tarmac may have been moved into hangars or relocated to other bases in the area. US forces in the region have been active since Israel began its strikes on Iran almost a week ago. An additional aircraft carrier is on its way, and there has been increased aircraft movement. AFP report also mentions that open-source data tracking of the movement of aircraft found that between June 15 and 18, at least 27 military refueling planes — KC-46A Pegasus and KC-135 Stratotanker — flew from the US to Europe. As of late Wednesday, 25 of those planes remained in Europe, while only two had returned to the United States, according to the data.
NDTV
20-06-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
US Military Jets No Longer Visible At Qatar Base, Show Satellite Images
Washington: Dozens of US military aircraft are no longer on the tarmac at a major US base in Qatar, satellite images show -- a possible move to shield them from eventual Iranian air strikes, as Washington weighs whether to intervene in Tehran's conflict with Israel. Between June 5 and 19, nearly all of the aircraft visible at the Al Udeid base are no longer anywhere in plain sight, according to images published by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by AFP. Nearly 40 military aircraft -- including transport planes like the Hercules C-130 and reconnaissance aircraft -- were parked on the tarmac on June 5. In an image taken on June 19, only three aircraft are visible. The US embassy in Qatar announced Thursday that access to the base would be limited "out of an abundance of caution and in light of ongoing regional hostilities," and urged personnel to "exercise increased vigilance." The White House says US President Donald Trump will decide sometime in the next two weeks whether to join ally Israel's strikes on Iran. The Islamic republic could then respond by striking US bases in the region. Mark Schwartz, a former lieutenant general in the US Army and a defense researcher at the Rand Corporation, said the personnel, aircraft and installations at Al Udeid would be "extremely vulnerable" given its "close proximity" to Iran. Schwartz, who served in the Middle East, told AFP that even shrapnel could render the aircraft "non-mission capable." "You want to reduce risk to US forces, both personnel and equipment," he said. The planes that have left the tarmac since early June could have been moved to hangars or to other bases in the region. The US military did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment. US forces in the Middle East have been mobilized since Israel's first strikes on Iran nearly a week ago, with an additional aircraft carrier en route and significant aircraft movement. An AFP analysis of open source data tracking aircraft positioning showed that at least 27 military refueling planes -- KC-46A Pegasus and KC-135 Stratotanker planes -- traveled from the United States to Europe from June 15-18. Twenty-five of them were still in Europe as of late Wednesday, with only two returning to American soil, the data showed.
