C-17 makes first landing on new Antarctic deep-snow airfield
A C-17 cargo plane from Joint Base Lewis-McChord made the first landing on Antarctica's newly-constructed Phoenix Airfield in November 2016. The runway is a compacted deep-snow (15-meters) airfield located near McMurdo Station that is slated to replace Pegasus Airfield, a glacial ice runway, also designed by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory and constructed in the 1990's.