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I know some aircraft may land on iced surfaces. what are the difficulties associated and is this limited to specially designed aircraft.

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Is there some conditions necessary for the landing and the next takeoff. Where are the main iced airfields currently active?

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    $\begingroup$ you mean this? $\endgroup$
    – Federico
    Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 13:48
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    $\begingroup$ @NormLDude: Can you cite any sources for that? The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 (and still in force today) specifically bans military activity on that continent. (P.S. I have multiple relatives who have been to the Antarctic, both by boat and plane, as tourists and bonafide scientists) $\endgroup$
    – abelenky
    Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 14:59
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    $\begingroup$ I get where you're headed with the edits, @mins, but I think you've totally changed the point of the question. It now reads (to me) to be "What aircraft operate in the Antarctic?", where the original was "In an emergency could any aircraft land in the Antarctic?" $\endgroup$
    – FreeMan
    Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 17:24
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    $\begingroup$ Dude, stop totally changing the question!! $\endgroup$
    – foobarbecue
    Commented Jul 10, 2015 at 15:11
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    $\begingroup$ "On the rifts?" What are you even talking about with this latest title change? Answering this question is like landing... on an aircraft carrier in high seas... except the aircraft carrier is sinking... $\endgroup$
    – foobarbecue
    Commented Jul 10, 2015 at 15:58

4 Answers 4

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I've spent 6 summers in Antarctica (Mt. Erebus), travelling through McMurdo, where the busiest airstrips on the continent are. Most flights to McMurdo are on C-17s or C-130 Hercules. Some of the Hercules are LC-130 -- the L indicates that they have skis. The skis enable them to land and take off on some including ungroomed or poorly groomed snow / ice surfaces. Sometimes they need JATO for takeoff, though, if the conditions aren't great.

McMurdo has three runways which open and close operations during the year: Willy Field, Pegasus, and the Ice Runway. The Ice Runway is on sea ice and the other two are on the Ross Ice Shelf with Pegasus built on blue ice and Willy Field on snow. The Ice Runway breaks up each year during the height of the summer so it is carefully monitored. It bends downwards each time a C-17 lands. That deformation is measured and is one of the parameters that's used to decide when to stop using the Ice Runway each year.

Sometimes, planes designed for non-military use are flown to McMurdo; the New Zealand Antarctic program often flies an Airbus A319 there. As far as I know, a well-groomed snow / ice runway can accommodate any plane in good weather. A Boeing 757 flight to McMurdo from Christchurch had a scary incident recently where it was forced to land in low visibility because it didn't have enough fuel to "boomerang" back to New Zealand. The C-17s often boomerang due to bad weather. The Hercules, like the 757, don't carry enough fuel to boomerang, but they are better at landing in inclement conditions so it doesn't seem to be an issue.

For flights within-continent, Twin Otters and Baslers are in common use.

No, there's no military presence with offensive capability. I don't really understand this (recently added) part of the question -- did you think they'd hit you with antiaircraft??? There's a bunch of air force guys who operate the flights, and a single US Marshall in McMurdo.

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    $\begingroup$ Worth noting that there are at least two ice-free runways, as well; the British one at Rothera and the Chilean one on King George Island, both off the Antarctic Peninsula on the other side of the continent. $\endgroup$
    – Andrew is gone
    Commented Jul 10, 2015 at 12:21
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    $\begingroup$ "did you think they'd hit you with antiaircraft???" -- and anyway antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia, or the contiguous 48 US states. Even if anybody wanted to, it would be some military effort to patrol the whole thing (and from military bases where? Antarctica itself? Argentina?) $\endgroup$
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented Jul 10, 2015 at 16:40
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Yes it could, same way it would preform an emergency landing any where else. There are ice runways out there and its not all that uncommon to see small GA planes landing on frozen lakes in the winter. There are considerations when it comes to breaking and what not but in the end of the day you have the ability to always land into the wind (since you are picking your touch down heading provided there are limited obstacles). Landing into the wind is also key as a result of some of the potentially high winds in the arctic and antarctic shelves. The largest issue is not knowing how thick the ice is. While I don't know an enormous amount about north or south pole geology the ice thickness varies and in some places could not support an aircraft landing. For the most part the south pole ice is very thick (9000ft) by all estimates, but the outer edges and the ice that does not reside above the landmass could be thinner. Keep in mind that parts of the arctic/antarctic are in total dark for a part of the year so you may be looking at nigh procedures when landing.

Interestingly enough, Antarctica actually has 20 airports so you may even be able to put down on a strip depending on where you are.

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    $\begingroup$ I doubt the original questioner specifically meant Antarctica, even though that name was used. After all a Cessna (mentioned in a comment) wouldn't reach Antarctica without refuelling, I think. I guess @Dave's answer was downvoted for pedantic reasons... $\endgroup$
    – Andy
    Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 15:01
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    $\begingroup$ The answer has been updated to reflect information on both poles. $\endgroup$
    – Dave
    Commented Jul 9, 2015 at 15:07
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    $\begingroup$ I dimly remember a plane having to visit Antarctica in winter, for an emergency Medevac, and that one of the problems was that it had to keep moving once landed or its skis would freeze to the ice. $\endgroup$
    – DJClayworth
    Commented Jul 10, 2015 at 4:50
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    $\begingroup$ That is incorrect, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_night $\endgroup$
    – Dave
    Commented Jul 10, 2015 at 13:12
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    $\begingroup$ @reirab: I think Taemyr means that totalled across the year, the poles experience the same number of hours with the sun above the horizon as anywhere else does. So, mentioning that the year happens to include some periods of darkness longer than 24 hours, and therefore that a night landing might be required in an emergency, is not really any different from mentioning that an emergency landing at the equator might occur at night. Yeah, sometimes it's dark. Like anywhere. It's once you land and stay there a while that the fact it's dark all "day" starts to matter. $\endgroup$
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented Jul 10, 2015 at 16:23
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Any plane with tires.

When the ice is plowed it scratches it up and that provides enough of a friction that landings are fairly normal, like landing on concrete.

There are ice runways in Greenland that are used regularly.

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And even, a Hercules can land on ice:

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Source.

They where built for landing on ice may sound crazy but they are built for land on all kinds of surfaces

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