Air NZ flies new ‘stealth’ aurora hunter
An hour into our flight, my window began to glow green. One of the most beautiful shows on earth had begun. We’d flown into an aurora storm.
On Saturday night, as the sun was setting over the Southern Alps, one of the world’s most spectacular scenic fights lifted off from Christchurch. Typically, Air New Zealand flies passengers to a destination – but for this flight, the destination was just outside the window: the Southern Lights.
In 2017, Otago Museum director and astronomer Dr Ian Griffin organised the first-ever commercial flight to see the Southern Lights, known as the Aurora Australis, flying to an area over the Southern Ocean where the lights tend to shine the brightest.
The trip was repeated in 2018 but then put on ice – until travel company Viva Expeditions decided to revive it in the face of closed borders.
More than 250 Kiwis were on the specially chartered 787 Dreamliner flight on Saturday night. Another full flight was scheduled for last night.
Saturday night’s mission was also led by Griffin, alongside astronomers, professional photographers and Antarctic Academy Director Miranda Satterthwaite.
Griffin and photographer Stephen Voss constantly took highly sensitive photographs and used an intercom to relay information to the pilots to help guide their flight path.
Griffin has completed eight aurora spotting flights and says this one was the best.
‘‘We flew into an aurora storm,’’ he said with a smile that grew wider as he recalled the evening.
‘‘What was really impressive was the crew were like mowing the lawn back and forth across the auroral zone for the best part of six hours.
‘‘New Zealand is the only county that’s done this in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia is up next for the challenge. Let’s see how well they do.’’
Many passengers didn’t see the strong green colours with their naked eye, rather a whitish-green glow that surrounded the aircraft. To capture the vivid greens, passengers needed good cameras – although some managed to pick up great shots on their mobile phone.
Griffin said he thought some people might be disappointed they didn’t see bright green colour with the naked eye, but described the activity on display out the windows as ‘‘extraordinary’’.
‘‘We got video pretty much 20 minutes after takeoff, and it continued very much for the rest of the time,’’ Griffin said.
‘‘Viva Expeditions has really innovated and pivoted and thrown their hearts into this project.’’
The original flight path had the jet heading right down to the coast of Antarctica, but because the geomagnetic field was very active, the best activity was much further north.
One of four pilots on the flight, First Officer Al Hanley, said: ‘‘It’s great to offer something different for passengers, as you can imagine with the Covid environment, it’s pretty amazing to be able to fly 10 hours and not have to sit in 14 days of quarantine.’’
The flight was operated as a domestic service from
Christchurch. Air New Zealand got special approval to go into ‘‘stealth’’ mode for the flight.
‘‘Because it’s part of airspace that’s very low in traffic, there’s no traffic down there, we are able to turn off the external lights of the plane which helps the viewer experience,’’ he said.
Another First Officer on the flight, Andrew Hanley, was chuffed with how the flight went. ‘‘We were quite fortunate with last night’s flight that it was quite northerly in its orientation, so we got to see it very quickly.’’
Because of huge demand, Viva Expeditions is about to release more flights for trips to see the aurora in May.
Griffen is beyond excited about future expeditions.
‘‘It’s been said that more penguins see the Southern Lights than human beings, so to be able to go down there directly under the southern aurora oval and see it is really remarkable.’’
Departures in May and August are on sale now. See: vivaexpeditions.com