On February 4, 1902, British Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott made the first flight over the world's most remote continent. Scott went aloft in a tethered hot-air balloon off the Antarctic Coast. He made several scientific observations and became the first person to peer into the heart of Antarctica. One of Scott's colleagues, Ernest Shackleton, also eventually went up and took several photographs--the first aerial shots of the continent. Although Scott was the first person above Antarctica, he also wanted to be the first to reach the South Pole. Unfortunately for him, Roald Amundsen became the first man to claim that honour, on foot, in 1911. A few weeks later, Scott would also make it to the Pole but would die of starvation and exposure while returning from his mission.

After Scott's initial ascent, Antarctic aerial exploration remained inactive until the 1920s, or until the best polar pilots had first conquered the Arctic region. In December 1928, Sir Hubert Wilkins and Carl Ben Eielson--who that April had become the first person to fly an aircraft across the Arctic Ocean--took off from Deception Island, one of Antarctic's most remote islands, and made the first successful airplane flight over the continent. They flew their Lockheed Vega the entire length of Graham Land, a major Antarctic peninsula. In less than a year's time, Wilkins and Eielson had become the first people to fly over both polar regions.

At approximately the same time that Wilkins and Eielson were soaring over Graham Land, U.S. Navy Commander Richard Byrd was establishing a massive permanent base camp called "Little America" on the Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica. While Wilkins and Eielson had only a small team and a few sponsors, Byrd was leading the largest, privately sponsored polar expedition up to that point with more than 80 men, four ships, and three separate airplanes--a Ford Trimotor named the Floyd Bennett (in honour of the man who had flown him to the North Pole, but who had recently died of pneumonia), a Fokker, and a Fairchild. Although Wilkins and Eielson were mainly interested in surveying Antarctica, Byrd was obsessed with being the first to fly over the South Pole.

By November 1929, Byrd felt ready to attempt the Pole. On the 28th, the weather cleared and Byrd, pilot Bernt Balchen, co-pilot Harold June, and Ashley McKinely, a photographer and aerial mapper, took off in the Floyd Bennett and headed toward their destination. They planned to fly directly to the Pole and then, on their return trip, refuel and re-supply at a remote ground base. During the flight, as they approached the massive Queen Maud mountain range, they had to dump several bags of food and supplies at the very last minute to be light enough to climb over the mountains. Once they were past the range, it was a pretty direct path to the Pole. When Byrd finally winged over the "bottom of the world," he became the first person to have flown over both poles. In all, the entire roundtrip flight, a journey of approximately 1,600 miles (2,575 kilometres), had taken 17 hours, 26 minutes.

In the 1940s, the U.S. military became the leading aerial explorer of Antarctica. In December 1946, the U.S. Navy's Operation Highjump, the largest Antarctic expedition ever organized, began. Highjump included a task force of 13 ships and more than 4,700 seamen. The main purpose of the operation, which ended in 1947, was to train men and test equipment that could operate under polar conditions; the U.S. wanted to be prepared to match its new enemy, the Soviet Union in any terrain, should hostilities break out between the two superpowers. During the operation, the navy successfully launched several heavy-laden transport planes from an aircraft carrier using jet-assisted take-off (JATO), a significant technological advance that shortens the distance required for heavy aircraft launches. Another key outcome of Highjump was an extensive aerial survey of Antarctica. Under Richard Byrd's guidance, the Navy used Martin and Douglas aircraft to map approximately 1.5 million square miles (3.9million square kilometres) of Antarctica's interior and about 5,500 miles (14,245 kilometres) of its coastline.

In 1955, the U.S. Navy launched another major Antarctic operation that relied heavily on aircraft and remained active up to the turn of the 21st century. The initial objective of Operation Deep Freeze was to establish two Antarctic scientific bases, one at the South Pole, and one in Marie Byrd Land. One of Deep Freeze's major aviation highlights was the construction of several airplane bases that allowed planes equipped with wheels to take off and land on the ice, something that only aircraft fitted with skis could previously do. Another mission highlight occurred when a Navy transport plane made the first aircraft landing at the South Pole on October 31, 1956. Helicopters would also eventually become an important part of Deep Freeze. In all, by the turn of the 21st century, the U.S. Navy had transported more than 195,000 passengers, and delivered over 240 million pounds of cargo and close to 10 million gallons (37.9 million litres) of fuel around Antarctica.