Constellation Inlet is an ice-filled inlet, long and wide, between the Dott Ice Rise and the

Skytrain Ice Rise Skytrain Ice Rise () is a large, flattish, peninsula-like ice rise of about 50 miles extent, extending from the vicinity of Meyer Hills in the Heritage Range eastward into the Ronne Ice Shelf of Antarctica. It was mapped by United States Geologic ...

at the southwest margin of the Ronne Ice Shelf. It was mapped by the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

from surveys and from

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

air photos, 1961–66, and named by the

Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (ACAN or US-ACAN) is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending commemorative names for features in Antarctica. History The committee was established ...

for the

Lockheed Super Constellation The Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation is an American aircraft, a member of the Lockheed Constellation aircraft line. The aircraft was colloquially referred to as the Super Connie. The L-1049 was Lockheed's response to the successful Douglas DC ...

aircraft, C-121J. Equipped only with wheeled

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', that is arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has one or more nose wheels in a single front undercarriage and two or more main wheels slightly aft of th ...

, it was for many years the principal carrier of personnel from the U.S. to

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and thence to the

ice runway The Annual Sea-Ice Runway is a type of seasonal ice runway made on frozen McMurdo Sound for the United States Antarctic Program, U.S. Antarctic Program during the summer Antarctic field season in proximity to Hut Point Peninsula, which has Mc ...

near

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is an American Antarctic research station on the southern tip of Ross Island. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is ...

. In addition to its role of hauling men and supplies, the "Connie" flew many hours of aerial photography over Antarctica.

References

f> Inlets of Ellsworth Land Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf {{EllsworthLand-geo-stub