"Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea Hawk at wow way d0t com wrote:
Probably be faster to go the other way around Antartica given the
hurricane force winds that commonly blow west to east...

True - and there are more stations and bases along the coast in that
direction. I just discovered, though, that Macquarie Island has no airfield
(it's a World Heritage Site). So the flight from Dumont d'Urville station
to Hobart Tasmania is about 1450 nm. :-(