The newly-built airport on Saint Helena, a British colony in the south Atlantic between South Africa and Brazil has had its opening postponed indefinitely. It was built using our Foreign Aid budget as the only means of getting to the island has only ever been by sea from Cape Town. The geniuses within the Blair administration conceived the project which was delivered by Cameron's dimwits and cost the taxpayer £250 million. It was only having concreted-over the only relatively flat bit of land on the island, that it was discovered that turbulence and wind sheer on the runway and its approach is too strong for an aircraft to land. As a result the airport is consigned to be a huge white elephant and the island's 4,000-odd inhabitants will have to wait to see if the aging Royal Mail steamer. RMS Saint Helena, which currently visits ten times a year will be replaced. British Airways pilot Brian Heywood said he had warned David Cameron and the then International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell about the windshear problem, and said trying to run scheduled flights would be an "operational shambles". In a letter to the St Helena Independent, he said: "If an airport is built on the edge of a near-vertical 1,000ft cliff, the prevailing wind is bound to cause problems." and added "to grumble about windshear at St Helena airport is a bit like grumbling about the heat in a newly built Sahara airfield in the summer. It is entirely predictable." These DfID dimwits move among us, folks.
There is an interesting thread on this airport on pprune, here: http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airports-routes/558321-st-helena-service.html
Interesting that flights from the UK can not use the rather decent airport Ascension Island - a British Overseas Territory - for commercial flights and as a staging point for Saint Helena. That'd be because the USAF leases it and restricts it to US military flights. The proposed service between the UK will call at Banjul instead. Mind you, eight or so hours cooped-up on a charter configuration Boeing 737 with six abreast seating at 29 inch pitch and only 15kgs baggage costing £1299 return is rather far from being a fun idea.
The RMS St Helena is alongside HMS Belfast in the Pool of London as I write. I would prefer five days on board her to the flight you describe!
I would think that a refit and replacement of her horrid Mirrlees -Blackstone engines with something modern would keep the old girl going for quite a while longer.
I reckon we should send dodgy dave, his mate glorious George, the buffoon corbyn and naughty Nige out there on a windy day
This airport is surely a vanity project for profligate DfID which hoped that it had no need to replace the aged Royal Mail liner. Have those geniuses considered for one minute just how bulk fuel - for the flights as well as for electricity generation and motor vehicles - and all the other necessities of life will be delivered there in future?
Wasn't the airport used recently for a medi-vac. I was a cadet in college with a lad who worked on the RMS St Helena, really nice bloke but HUGE.
Google RMS St Helena and it may be that your mate is now her Master? Yes, it was. The gist of the expert opinion on pprune seems to be that the airline could use a Bombardier C-100, which has short field capacity, but using the Boeing 738 is asking for trouble. The problem would be that the Boeing was specified because of its under belly cargo capacity, which the Bombardier does not have.
The website only seems to list about 6 crew and no officers? Looks a good ol fashioned jaunt to serve on there anyway
According to pprune: First was a pass with wheels up to check the wind shear. Second was an attempt to land, which became a go around when the plane got all floaty, just when the wheels should have been contacting the tarmac. The third was a success. Not a lot of spare runway - it's 1,850 metres. the problem is the thousand foot cliff which generates vortices in the trade wind.
