A Royal New Zealand Air Force 757 will tomorrow make a second trial flight to Antarctica's McMurdo Sound, testing whether passenger planes can be unloaded on the Sound's frozen southern airstrip.
The flight of the passenger planes, taking about eight and a half hours return, would augment Hercules cargo plane flights currently used to move equipment and personnel from New Zealand, US and Italian Antarctic projects on the ice.
The airliner would land on the white ice landing strip at the shared Pegasus ice runway, where the facility's ability to deal with passengers, aircraft maintenance and other ground support would be assessed, a New Zealand Defence Force spokesman told NZPA.
If the tests proved successful, the 757s could start flying to Antarctica next year, he said.