Campaign Earth: Ouch – a 05:00 start to the day. Packing calories with our Arctic explorers breakfast (eggs over easy, sizzling bacon, sausages and hash browns) was the last critical item on the agenda before an early departure from what has affectionately become known as the ‘plywood palace’ – South Camp Inn, at Resolute Bay airport (YRB). Departure from the plywood Palace. (courtesy Mark Drinkwater–ESA) The Norlandair Twin Otter (TF-POF), characterised by its dark-red livery and spotty tail, is chartered in Akureyri Iceland by the National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark (DTU-Space) and operated by an Icelandic flight crew of three: pilot, co-pilot and engineer. The scientific team is led by CryoVEx project manager Rene Forsberg and campaign coordinator Sine Munk Hvidegaard who operates the ASIRAS altimeter and scanning lidar instruments. Meanwhile a third DTU Space scientist Emil Nielsen, onboard TC-POF for the flights out of Inuvik, had departed for Station Nord on the Basler, together with the ice camp team, to make way for my participation in the sixth seat. Norlandair Twin Otter ‘Siorarsiooq’ at Resolute, with heater & smoke. (courtesy Mark Drinkwater–ESA) The Twin Otter was loaded where it had been standing on the apron at the airport in ...