UK Defence Forum

"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."

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’.

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.

Related Articles

May decisions for autumn. 2) Hinkley Point and Heathrow expansion. What’s the policy?
Steve Double: No more delays – our economy needs Heathrow expansion
Tim Jenkins: Brexit will mean that Britain will need to deploy even more soft power
Francis Maude: Cheaper, quicker, simpler, less noisy – and politically acceptable. Why the new Government should take up Heathrow Hub.
May’s mission. Not so much social justice or even social mobility as social reform.
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.

SKB wrote:The world's last Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Saint Helena

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Totally out of topic, but can someone advise what RMAS existed for (and when)?

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

GibMariner wrote: It operated things like tugs, tenders, salvage vessels, ammunition transports etc. Services were farmed out via PFI beginning in the 90s

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).

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.