Cape Waite

Cape Waite is a cape at the northwest extremity of King Peninsula, marking the southwest side of the entrance to Peacock Sound. Delineated from air photos taken by U.S. Navy Operation Highjump in December 1946. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) for Amory H. Waite, member of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition, 1933–35, and communications specialist on the Atka voyage of 1955 and the U.S. Navy Bellingshausen Sea Expedition of 1959–60. Waite was investigating the high number of aircraft crashes in Antarctica when he discovered that certain radar frequencies were not reflected from the surface of the ice, they penetrated through to the land surface below giving false altimeter readings. This discovery both made flight much safer and started the use of radioglaciology to survey the topography of the land surface beneath the ice.[1]

References

1. BBC BBC Four, 8:00PM Thu, 27 Oct 2011, The Secret Life of Ice by Doctor Gabrielle Walker

 This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Geological Survey document: "Cape Waite". (content from the Geographic Names Information System)