Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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SKB
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Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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Image
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^ Jamestown, Saint Helena
News of Saint Helena's new (and first!) airport
"The team from Flight Calibration Services Limited (FCSL) and TAB Charters – who made the first ever landing at St Helena Airport and carried out a series of calibration flights between 15 and 23 September 2015 – has now submitted their preliminary findings and Basil Read is in the process of undertaking corrective actions.

As is normal after initial calibration testing of navigational aids, there are corrections which Basil Read will now make. The majority of these are minor tweaks to equipment, but in a few cases some redesign and relocation work might be required. This includes the Localiser and DVOR. Basil Read is working with Thales and FCSL to carry out modelling work to inform the design and determine the extent of the rectification work. FCSL will return to the Island, possibly in the latter part of 2015 or early 2016, to recalibrate the NavAids following the rectification work.

Basil Read Island Director Deon de Jager said:

“Calibration work generally results in the need for corrective action and the teams in Basil Read and Thales are currently working on solutions. Calibration is an ongoing requirement to maintain Certification and is of the utmost importance in ensuring the accuracy and effective functioning of the NavAids.

“The calibration flights are serving their purpose in helping us to achieve a world class facility for St Helena. In operating the Airport, safety and security will always be our primary concern.”

Further details on the second calibration flight will follow in due course."
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Other Saint Helena News: http://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/category/news/

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Nice fallback, should there be problems/ congestion on Ascension:
http://i2.wp.com/alittleviewoftheworld. ... ic-map.gif
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
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SKB
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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How Saint Helena's airport was built.


First landing!


View from cockpit

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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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shark bait
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by shark bait »

Wow what a landscape. There's a good video of the approach in the link.

Must have been a challenging construction in that landscape, on an island in the middle of nowhere.
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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St Helena islanders to bid farewell to Aberdeen-built lifeline ship
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(The Scotsman) The last ship to be built in Aberdeen is about to be decommissioned after providing the sole link to one of the world’s most remote islands.

Royal Mail Ship (RMS) St Helena has provided the lifeline service for passengers and cargo to the South Atlantic outpost for 26 years.

However, the vessel is to be sold when its five-day voyages to and from South Africa are replaced by flights when an airport opens on the British overseas territory.

RMS St Helena has travelled 2.5 million miles and carried 101,000 passengers since taking over the route from Cape Town in 1990. She is expected to make the 1,500-mile trip for the last time in July.

More: http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/ ... z47Vs3RC4L

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SKB
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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RMS St Helena in London for farewell visit
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The world's last Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Saint Helena has arrived in London as part of its farewell tour. The passenger and cargo ship has been the only means of accessing the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic but the opening of a new airport is forcing her retirement after 26 years of service.

The 105 metre long vessel is the last working Royal Mail Ship in the world and was built in 1989 specifically to supply the island which is 1200 miles off the west coast of Africa.

RMS St Helena sailed up the Thames yesterday and entered Tilbury Docks where she remains until Tuesday afternoon. She will then go up the river and sail through Tower Bridge at 1645.

The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, will attend a reception on board the ship on Wednesday and St Helena heads back down the river to Tilbury on Friday afternoon.

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GibMariner
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by GibMariner »

Daily Mail's less positive take on the new airport on St Helena:

The £250m island airport where jets can't land because it is too windy (and guess what, your aid money is paying for it)
An airport built with £250million from the ballooning foreign aid budget risks becoming a white elephant because it is too windy to land there safely, it was claimed yesterday.
A royal opening at the airport on the remote island of St Helena has been postponed indefinitely after test flights raised safety concerns.
The cliff-top landing strip was built with £250million from the Department for International Development to help boost the tiny island in the South Atlantic, which is Britain’s most remote overseas territory.
It is home to around 4,000 people. It was due to be opened by Prince Edward last month but the start of commercial flights has been delayed after trials with a Boeing 737-800 revealed a problem with turbulence and windshear on the runway approach.
Windshear is a sudden powerful change in wind direction which can destabilise or even flip large aircraft and has been responsible for crashes around the world. Former Tory party treasurer Lord Ashcroft said he was recently forced to abandon a planned visit to the island because of ‘serious concerns that the airport is too dangerous to use’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ng-it.html

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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by Tony Williams »

What about the windshear problem? It sounds rather bad in this article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/st-he ... 02226.html

...and especially this one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ng-it.html

...and the first landing by a 737 looks pretty fraught - made it on the third attempt (must have been a brown-trouser moment for the pilot!): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36325972

A couple of years ago I visited the Cape Verde Islands and we travelled past an abandoned airport (built by a German consortium IIRC) which had never been used because of a crosswind problem. Hope it doesn't happen with this one!

PS GibMariner got in just before me!

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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by GibMariner »

Lord Ashcroft on the issues surrounding Saint Helena and its new airport:
Five questions for DfID regarding the sorry tale of St Helena’s £285 million airport
It has been a long, troubled and worrying year for the 4,500 residents of St Helena but I, for one, have not forgotten about their plight.

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Since my initial blog three months ago, I have been trying to shed light on how £285 million of taxpayers’ money came to be spent on a new airport for the remote South Atlantic island, but with a runway that is considered too dangerous to use by airline operators.

For reasons best known to themselves, the St Helena Government and the Department for International Development (DfID) have repeatedly refused to make public a report that was prepared by the Met Office on the new airport.
More here: http://www.conservativehome.com/platfor ... rport.html

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

SKB wrote:The world's last Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Saint Helena
Totally out of topic, but can someone advise what RMAS existed for (and when)?
= Royal Maritime Auxiliary Ship
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ArmChairCivvy wrote:Totally out of topic, but can someone advise what RMAS existed for (and when)?
Auxiliary tasks that aren't part of the RFA, mostly berthing and towage and a few other bits. Now farmed out to Serco under a PFI. They also provide some support ships and a platform for the submarine rescue system.
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by GibMariner »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:
SKB wrote:The world's last Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Saint Helena
Totally out of topic, but can someone advise what RMAS existed for (and when)?
= Royal Maritime Auxiliary Ship
RMAS was the prefix used by the Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service, which existed from the 1970s to 2009, providing auxiliaries and support services to the RN and RFA. It operated things like tugs, tenders, salvage vessels, ammunition transports etc. Services were farmed out via PFI beginning in the 90s until finally disappearing in 2009 and replaced by Serco Marine Services.

Edit: SharkBait beat me to it!

Serco's vessels now use the prefix SD. SD Northern River, the largest of the vessels operated by Serco is currently at Gibraltar.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

GibMariner wrote: It operated things like tugs, tenders, salvage vessels, ammunition transports etc. Services were farmed out via PFI beginning in the 90s
Thanks, that was my understanding. The most notable (largest by displacement?) havng been the one used for torpedo trials... but douled as a cable laying ship... and could slip out all kinds of SF boat forms unnoticed, starting from kayaks, nut going up to something that they now have, in the 50+ knots category).
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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GibMariner
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by GibMariner »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:
Thanks, that was my understanding. The most notable (largest by displacement?) havng been the one used for torpedo trials... but douled as a cable laying ship... and could slip out all kinds of SF boat forms unnoticed, starting from kayaks, nut going up to something that they now have, in the 50+ knots category).
Would that be RMAS Newton? SD Victoria became her replacement I believe. Both RMAS Newton and Kinterbury as well as the Sal-class salvage ships were frequent visitors to Gib.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Exactly, the right ship that prompted my question.
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by dmereifield »

Any more news on the airport, and what can be done to make it safe to operate?
I am surprised that our DfID budget could be used for overseas territories - is this a unique case or does it happen more regularly? It's certainly a good use of the budget to support our our friends in the oversea territories, especially when it can also help the national interest (clearly this may not have been the best example of value for money - but hopefully they will find a solution).

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SKB
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

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First scheduled flight touches down on remote St Helena

(Bob St Helena)
"First landing of an SA Airlink Embraer E190 (ZS-YAA) at St Helena Airport on Monday 21st August 2017. Conditions very windy hence sound toned down and the buffeting of the camera (and cameraman!)"

Image
(BBC News)
The first scheduled commercial airline service to the remote British island of St Helena in the south Atlantic has touched down safely.
The first flight, an SA Airlink service from South Africa, ends the island's long-standing reliance on a ship which sailed every three weeks.
It is hoped that the service, funded by the UK, will boost tourism and help make St Helena more self-sufficient. But British media have dubbed it "the most useless airport in the world".

Built with £285m ($380m) of funding from the UK Department for International Development (Dfid), the airport should have opened in 2016, but dangerous wind conditions delayed the launch. After further trials this summer, the weekly service between Johannesburg and St Helena was passed as safe.

St Helena had for decades been one of the world's most inaccessible locations, served only by a rare ship service from South Africa.
It is chiefly known as the island to which French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled after his defeat in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and where died.

The Embraer E190-100IGW aircraft took off from Johannesburg on Saturday morning, carrying 78 passengers. It reached St Helena in the afternoon after stopping in the Namibian capital, Windhoek.

"I for one am getting really excited about the new chapter in St Helena's history," said St Helena governor Lisa Phillips.

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SKB
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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by SKB »


An interesting documentary about life in remote St. Helena. Made by Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany's international broadcaster.

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Re: Saint Helena (British Overseas Territory)

Post by Timmymagic »

Largest aircraft to date into St Helena airport. A UK Gov chartered Boeing 757-200 repatriation flight landed with 51 passengers and later took off with passengers returning to the UK. Apparently the inward leg included an overnight stop at Ascension (800 miles away) for fuel for safety, not sure about the return leg.

So far there have been B737, B757, BAE RJ100, Dassault Falcon's, Bombardier Challenger 300, Airbus A318, Socata TBM700, Learjet and Embraer E-190 (plus a twin prop I believe for testing).

Suspect the RAF could easily get an A400 or C-17 in as well...and if a standard B737 can get in...P-8 Poseidon can too. It has to be said that St Helena doesn't have a huge apron like Wideawake does, so its utility as a military airfield would be limited and cargo handling appears to be basic. For the cost of the additional hard standing in the grand scheme of things (and the fact that the construction crew was on site with equipment and materials) I think that was a mistake. Better to chuck an extra £1m and get some additional space for the future that may, or may not be used than possibly face huge additional costs to get a construction crew and all their gear in again. It was DFID's money though...

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