History
In 1998 the Commonwealth approved funding for the Department of Environment’s Australian Antarctic Division to commission the conduct of The Shevlin Report. The purpose of this document was to provide Federal Government with feasibility and cost structure for the design and implementation of an air service linking mainland Australia with the Australian Antarctic Territory. Pursuant to the tabling of the report the AAD published a Request for Tender seeking the provision of an air service in the manner designated by the report.
The tender document sought proposals for the operation of a C130 Hercules or its civilian equivalent L100-30 aircraft between Hobart and a compacted snow runway to be constructed near Casey station along with the provision of two Twin-Otter aircraft to operate on skis between the Australian stations at Casey, Davis and Mawson. Skytraders submitted a bid to provide the designated services however the company also put forward a radical non-compliant proposal requiring the design and certification of a ski conversion for the state of the art military platform C212-400 in lieu of the Twin-Otter. Similarly it recommended the use of a pure jet airliner instead of the C130, proposing that Skytraders had the ability to develop the technology and operating practices which would enable such an aircraft to land on ice negating the need for a soft footprint STOL platform such as the Hercules.
Skytraders explained, in support of its non-compliant bid, that the solution proposed by the Commonwealth had intrinsic problems. Clearly Antarctica poses the most hostile aviation operating environment on earth. Extremes of cold, wind and white-out conditions combine with the tyrannies of distance and remoteness to pose a unique level of risk. The sector from Hobart to Casey is some 1,842nm and with maximum fuel the Hercules has a PSR [Point of Safe Return] some 40 minutes out from the proposed landing area. Little historic weather data was available in regard to the proposed runway location and the NZRAF confirmed to Skytraders that their rate of turn back when operating in the same way between Christchurch and McMurdo often exceeded 50%. The Shevlin proposal necessitated the construction of a second runway in the Bunger Hills region to act as an Alternate in the event that Lanyon Junction was closed and the cost of maintaining such a facility was to be enormously high. But most of all the Hercules required the uplift of large quantities of fuel in Antarctica a project that would comprise an enormous logistical exercise along with enormous financial and environmental cost.
The proposed Twin-Otter aircraft lacked the payload range to operate the essential sector between Davis and Casey stations without a refueling stop. This in turn would necessitate the seasonal manning of a remote ski-way with all of the costs associated with overland re-supply. The aircraft also required cargoes to be winched up to sill height and then swung through the door a potentially dangerous task in snow and ice.
The Australian Antarctic Division accepted all of the points put forward by Skytraders in its non-compliant bid and the company was awarded the contract for the provision of services.