Pisten Bully Training

9/5/2015

By Peter Kimball

Our group climbs back into a Pisten Bully to resume training. Chris prepares to replace me as driver. We had stopped to look at the sea ice access road we'll eventually be using. (photo Peter Kimball)

We had Pisten Bully training on Monday. "Pisten" translates from German as "slopes" - these beastly little tracked vehicles are commonly used for cat skiing & ski area maintenance. A diesel engine drives a hydraulic motor that actually drives the tracks. Top speed on a "PB" in ideal conditions is about 16 mph, although the speed limit is 5 mph on-station. We each drove a Pisten Bully as part of our training on Monday and unanimously concluded that they're highly enjoyable to drive.

Our group is assigned two Pisten Bullies for accessing candidate field sites during winfly, so we'll get to know these machines very well.

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About the Blog

This is the personal blog of Peter Kimball and Evan Clark, following our deployment with the ARTEMIS long-range underwater robotic vehicle to explore beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Authors

Peter Kimball is an aerospace engineer and field roboticist on the Stone Aerospace ARTEMIS project.

Evan Clark is a computer scientist and field roboticist on the Stone Aerospace ARTEMIS project.

Kristof Richmond is a mechanical engineer and field roboticist on the Stone Aerospace ARTEMIS project.