[HN Gopher] Newcomer's Welcome Package: Thule Air Base, Greenlan... ___________________________________________________________________ Newcomer's Welcome Package: Thule Air Base, Greenland [pdf] Author : troydavis Score : 62 points Date : 2022-02-20 18:53 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (download.militaryonesource.mil) (TXT) w3m dump (download.militaryonesource.mil) | troydavis wrote: | Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdU2z4cDJdk | COGlory wrote: | I've come to love cold, dry, desolate places. (Such as Montana). | The downsides aren't nearly what people make them out to be, and | the upsides are amazing. Cold really isn't that bad, and winter | hobbies are a lot of fun. | tonyarkles wrote: | I'm sitting here in rural Saskatchewan right now, absolutely | loving life. We got this property dirt cheap ($1 for the lot, | $300 in gas to move a free mobile home to the lot, ~$4000 to | trench water and gas). Until last week, the only downside was | the lack of decent Internet for being able to work from out | here, but... thank you Starlink! Last week we went from | tethering to a distance tower, to 250Mbit downlink measured | this morning. | phkamp wrote: | All that info and not a single word about hydrogen bombs ? | lkramer wrote: | Probably need a higher clearance to be reminded of that | embarrassing little story. | | But I admit, I was looking for it as well:) | joshvm wrote: | Interesting, it reads a lot like the USAP participant [0] and | field manuals [1]: | | [0] | https://www.usap.gov/USAPgov/travelAndDeployment/documents/P... | | [1] https://www.eol.ucar.edu/system/files/usap-field-manual.pdf | | You can also find guides for Summit Station (a US/Greenland | research base) https://geo-summit.org/documents; in fact most of | these bases have publicly available guides and it's fun comparing | what facilities are available compared to what you have at your | own base. I remember watching the Australian WIFFA [2] movie this | year and thinking that damn, these guys have a _brewery_? Sadly | it turns out that got banned this year [3]. | | Though somewhat funny that it recommends finding an interesting | rock to make a belt buckle or gift, that's an absolute no-no in | Antaractica. | | [2] https://www.wiffa.aq | | [3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-28/antarctica-alcohol- | cr... | bacon_waffle wrote: | I'm surprised to see the winter film festival films posted out | in the open - my recollection (from 2014 winter, hi!) was that | those weren't supposed to be shared off-Ice. People are shy, | unsanctioned stuff goes in to the films, authorities often | don't take criticism well... | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | I have a friend that was stationed there, in the 1970s, or so. | | He said that a favorite prank on newcomers, was to completely | mess with their circadian rhythm, by waking them up at random | times, and telling them it was time to go on duty. | droro wrote: | Last week I watched an old Nova episode[0] about a harrowing | attempt to restore a B-29 that had been abandoned 50 years prior | a few hundred miles outside Thule. It turns out that Greenland is | a difficult place to do basic things, let alone repair a massive | decaying old warbird. | | [0] https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-b-29-frozen-in-time/ | Cupertino95014 wrote: | When I was in Iceland, I considered a side trip to Greenland, | just because no one I knew had _ever_ been there. | | I thought better of it when I realized it's a 3-hour flight from | Reykjavik, and very, very little tourist infrastructure. | | But I'd love to go to Thule. I bet you could give a talk on | practically ANY topic, and everyone would show up! What else is | there to do? | Cupertino95014 wrote: | (although on pp. 18-21, I see that maybe everyone would be way | too busy with all those activities.) | robinhoodexe wrote: | >While at Thule, it's recommended that you walk on the left side | of the road facing oncoming traffic. Although contrary to | stateside standards, this will enable you to watch for vehicles | and to get out of the way should they not see you. | | I have always found this to make extremely good sense, but I see | quite few doing it besides me. | nosianu wrote: | As a German, I learned this as a rule. Outside of towns when | there is no sidewalk, always walk on the left side, against | oncoming traffic. | | From the StVO, the law, the road traffic regulations, SS25 | section 1, first paragraph (German): | https://www.stvo.de/strassenverkehrsordnung/108-25-fussgaeng... | | > _ausserhalb geschlossener Ortschaften muss am linken | Fahrbahnrand gegangen werden_ | | "Outside of towns pedestrians have to walk on the left side" | | Just an aside, while looking at that website, the banner image | at the top looks clearly seems to be of an American road. On a | German website about German road laws. | bouchard wrote: | I'm pretty sure that's what is recommended here in Quebec, | Canada when there's no sidewalk. | | Seems weird that it wouldn't also be the case in the US. | Rebelgecko wrote: | It's what I was taught in the US as well, if you're on foot | you should be going opposite traffic | Jtsummers wrote: | It is the case in the US (or has been since I was a child in | the 80s) so I find the quote weird. You are supposed to walk | opposite traffic for the reason described. It is standard | guidance every I have lived (a large chunk of the US). | ImprovedSilence wrote: | Yeah, in the US I learned walk/run opposing traffic, and | ride your bike with traffic. | wk_end wrote: | FWIW - growing up in Ontario, Canada I was always told to | walk in the direction of traffic. It seemed odd to me to | turn my back to danger, but that's what they taught us. | Ekaros wrote: | In Finland it depends, with sidewalk and in populated | areas the normal right side traffic is to be followed. At | highways it is recommended to use left side specially | during dark. | alksjdalkj wrote: | I grew up in the states and was always taught to walk against | traffic. Not sure where they're teaching people the opposite. | aaaaaaaaata wrote: | Places where people think being right/having the right of way | triumphs being alive. | core-utility wrote: | FWIW, I knew a guy who was riding his bicycle on the | sidewalk, technically going the "wrong" direction. He crossed | a commercial business park driveway and got hit by a car who | didn't see him, and got a lot of hassle from insurance | because he was going the "wrong" way for that side of the | street. | | Looking back, that may have been the insurance company | looking to skirt responsibility. | throwthere wrote: | I think they're talking about walking. Riding a bike is | different-- for one, it's illegal in a lot of places to | ride on the sidewalk in a business district. For another, | the transfer of momentum is appreciably less in a same- | direction collision between a car/bike compared to head-on. | jkaptur wrote: | The sly humor really makes this document readable. I love the | list of what the base does NOT have, including "spiders or | snakes!" | samatman wrote: | A rare opportunity to indulge a question I've harboured for some | time: how do the servicemembers assigned to Thule Air Base | pronounce it? | | I was educated by Anthroposophists so when I read that noun my | inner voice pronounces it, er, Bavarian. I've never had a chance | to ask someone who would know how USAF says it, but I'd guess it | isn't that. | troydavis wrote: | "Too-lee" (https://www.peterson.spaceforce.mil/Thule-AB- | Greenland/). | ineedasername wrote: | A family member that was in the USAF talks about this base* and | pronounces it _/ 'tuli/_ (like "duly" in _" duly noted"_.) | | *Also that getting posted there was idiomatic for pissing off | the wrong person. As in, "Don't piss them off or you'll end up | in Thule Greenland". It wasn't considered a desirable posting, | at least not by many. Enough so that it provided what these | days is called "assignment incentive pay". | vba616 wrote: | >pronounces it /'tuli/ | | https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/50967/20-towns-named- | oth... | newsclues wrote: | Just hear about the big crater nearby! | | https://www.science.org/content/article/massive-crater-under... | malkia wrote: | From the pdf, page 3 at the bottom: | | "Simply put, Thule exists today in order to support the operation | of the solid-state phased-array radar located at the Ballistic | Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), Site I. The BMEWS site is | located approximately 11 miles northwest of the main base. | | It provides early warning detection of intercontinental ballistic | missile (ICBM) launches from the Russian land mass and submarine- | launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launches from the North | Atlantic and Arctic Oceans against North America. Additionally, | BMEWS keeps track of polar orbiting satellites. " | na85 wrote: | It also serves as a convenient staging point for Operation | Boxtop, the resupply of Eureka and Alert. | | Alert in particular plays a very important role, and the | intelligence it collects is vital. | malkia wrote: | Thanks! I wasn't aware, and not sure why kept on reading that | pdf... I've actually did not know what donning and doffing | means (it was about donning and doffing your arctic gear), | and with this pandemic I should've known, but found quick | video on youtube about it | -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCzwH7d4Ags ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-20 23:00 UTC)