Antarctic Wind Beneath My Wings | Continent 7: Antarctica

[music playing] Oh, what's it doing? It's still pointing in the right direction? It's drifting towards us.

NARRATOR: Paul is flying the climate team's $80,000 drone system. And it's fighting so much wind, it just can't handle it.

NARRATOR: And the winds are gusting to 70 miles per hour. Maintain heading. I'll tell you when to turn. Thank you. That's good. Do a right-hand turn in three, two, one-- now. [whirring] How's that? That's good. Maintain heading. That's easier said than done when it's beyond 54 knots.

You're doing good. We're seeing 60-knot average wind speeds, which is very high. The most I've ever flown in is about 50 knots. Left-hand turn a bit. Keep going. But yeah, there's obviously more pressure to make the most of the remaining time we've got. It's gonna move south a bit. And if we don't fly, they're going to be missing a large component of the data that they planned on getting.

A right-hand turn again in three, two, one. [whirring] I mean, it just can't handle it. It's too much wind for it. We do a couple of more, and then we call it off. [music playing] Your left hand, adjustment a little bit. That's it? Because it's struggling into that wind, it's using battery up faster. We might have to land. Keep going-- almost there. Right-hand turn, now. A low battery-- now I've got a battery alert. I'm coming home. OK. That's good.

NARRATOR: The team has a complete data set from higher altitude, but they still need to get the drone back in one piece. We've got to figure out where we're going to land. So this dry, dusty sand gets into the motor, so we're going to try and land on this wet sand. Of course, the danger with that is there's a river. So if we overshoot our landing, we end up in the drink. That would be bad. The gear is not waterproof.

You ready? Retract the probe please, [inaudible]. OK, the probe should be retracted. OK, good. [MUSIC PLAYING AND A WHINING SOUNDS] [cheering] Oh, you like hopped the river. How cool was that? Outstanding. So from the angle I was standing back there, there's a bit of terrain. You can see the skid mark-- bounce, jump.