I arrived just about the same time as the first aerogeophysical flight ended. The plane is a Navy P-3 built in 1962. It flies at about 300 knots. We first flew four long, roughly northeast-southwest flights out of Barrow that collected two lines each about 800 n.m.long and two short cross tracks at the far ends. All data look good and the magnetometer is exceptionally quiet.
Maggie data look comparable to any really good shipboard magnetics.
So far, the schedule has been two days of flying and one day off but that may be changing to three fly-days with one day off. They only let visitors on one flight, so this is it for me. The flights last about 7.5 to 8 hours apiece. I was warned that the flights are mostly pretty boring. There are nine plane crew, including two pilots, two co-pilots, two flight engineers, a navigator, and two deckcrew.