DYE Site Map

Greenland Story

Not many people get to visit Greenland and live above the Arctic Circle and certainly not for a solid year. I’m one of the lucky few I guess; that’s sarcasm. I was sent to Sondrestrom Air Base in Nov 1974 while in the Air Force and worked as an Air Traffic Controller until I departed a year later. The sole purpose of Sondrestom was to support the 4 early warning radar DYE sites strung across Greenland (See map). DYE 1 and 4 were on top of mountains on the East and West coasts while DYE 2 and 3 were on the Greenland Ice Cap. The Ice cap goes up to 11,000 feet in places and I know DYE 3 was at around 8,500 feet above sea level. Greenland is really a big circle of mountains with the Ice Cap in the middle. The Ice Cap is so heavy it has pushed the center of the island well below sea level. My time in Greenland was interesting and I had several experiences I will share in this story. I should say I had nightmares for several years after leaving Greenland and it was always about arriving my first day and realizing I had a year to spend in this remote spot on earth.

Greenland above the Arctic Circle is totally dark for several months in winter with the sun gradually peaking over the mountains each day until we would then have total daylight for several months. In summer the sun never passes over like it does at home. It actually just goes in a circle just above the horizon for 360 degrees. Real strange. Summer was also a comfortable 50-60 degrees F and compared to the -50 degrees F in the winter it was fantastic. The reason this is important is that we never really knew what time it was (night or day). Many times I would wake up and have to call the operator on my telephone and ask “is it night or day?”

Although I could write pages about this place I will focus on two events. The DYE sites would be resupplied by ski equipped C-130 aircraft during the summer and this would be a non-stop operation for several months. There would be 3 or 4 C-130 temporality assign to Sondrestom for this operation and the control tower would provide air traffic control to include flights to and from all 4 DYE sites. The C-130’s had huge skis that could be extended below the tires for use on the Ice Cap while the wheels would be extended for landing at the runways at Sondrestom and the dirt strip on the East coast, Angmagssalik; bet you can’t pronounce that. Not only would the C-130’s carry all the food required but they would also have to take out all the diesel fuel required to keep these sites powered for the whole year. The storage tanks on the Ice Cap DYE sites were just buried in the ice. If they put warm diesel in these tanks they would eventually sink so only fuel oil that had set in tanks at Sondrestom for a whole year would be taken to the sites. The Sondrestom storage tanks would be filled by ships that also came up the fjord during the summer months. The C-130s had a difficult time taking off of the Ice Cap so they would use JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off). This would be 8 jet rockets attached to the sides of the aircraft that would be fired at take-off to give that extra punch to get the aircraft off the ice. Very impressive to watch. Needless to say, summers in Greenland were a very busy time.

During the rest of the year the DYE sites were resupplied with perishables and other small items by a ski equipped twin otter aircraft.  This was a great plane and it would make a run to all the DYE sites once a week. It was about 375 miles from Sondrestom to the dirt runway at Angmagssalik on the East coast, most of it flying over the Ice Cap which as I said earlier extended up to 11,000 above sea level. I became good friends with the two pilots of the Twin Otter since I would see them every evening in the bar; only recreation we had. I asked to go on one of their runs and the next day was setting in a passenger seat on my way to DYE 3 and then over to DYE 4. This would be a ski landing on the Ice Cap plus a landing at Angmagssalik. I cannot adequately explain what it is to fly for hundreds of miles over a vast nothing (Ice Cap) then see a little speck on the surface that gradually grew to be a hugh building on stilts with a radome on top. The 18 guys at DYE 3 were really in the most isolated spot I have ever seen. A bull dozer had made a level spot on the Ice Cap so we could land on skis. The pilots left the engines running while it was unloaded and we went into the DYE building for lunch. This building is big and it is mounted on stilts that can be extended hydraulically to lift the whole building above the surface. This is necessary because the wind blows so hard that snow would drift over the building in a short time. Instead it just blows under the building. After lunch we took off and headed East to DYE 4. The dirt runway is at sea level but the DYE site is on top of a mountain many miles away. The runway goes from the sea shore and ends at a mountain. Ideally you would land towards the mountain and take off towards the sea; ideally anyway.

We landed with no problems and went into a small shack called the operations hut while the plane was unloaded. When we went back to the plane it had been reloaded with a break down crane made of very heavy I-beans and steel supports. The Pilot asked the ground crew how heavy this thing weighed and was told X Lbs which the Pilot then said “That is way over my gross weight capability!”. The ground crew was about to start unloading some of the crane parts when the Pilot said “Don’t unload anything, I think I can make it.” The “I think I can make it” caught my attention. They had also taken out all the passenger seats so the only place I had to set was on an I-beam just behind the pilots (no seat belt of course). To make things even worse, there was a wind that prevented our taking off towards the sea. Let me summarize the situation: Plane is overload, we have to get over 11,000 ft high to get over the Ice Cap, I’m setting on a piece of a crane with a whole lot of heavy metal right behind me and we are taking off towards a mountain on a dirt runway. Needless to say we made it off the ground but had to make an immediate turn after lift-off to miss the mountain. I got to see some Ice Bergs up real close as we flew past them gaining altitude to head towards the West.

This was the first and last time I asked to fly with these guys. A couple of days later I was in the tower and the Twin Otter took off for a normal run when one of their engines stopped just after take-off and then they disappeared behind a mountain up the fjord. I called them on the radio and the pilot said he didn’t need any help and they were restarting the engine. That night in the bar I was talking to the young co-pilot and he said that crazy pilot shut the engine off just to see how the co-pilot would handle the emergency. You would do crazy things in Greenland just because of boredom.