- Undertake a more robust investigation into the phenomenon at MPC and generate the facts that will placate key elements of the FIG who are financially disadvantaged by delayed civ air into the military airfield. This research should include physical trials of ac flying in the 56//// conditions with key protagonists on board.
- Complement the met office with better technology to forecast with more accuracy etc, LIDAR??
Better Tech - absolutely, I believe this may be being looked at.
Physical trials - Now there is an idea! Could even ask the locals, they might have some experience and opinions worth listening to. I fully appreciate that none of them have the wealth of training that the RAF have however I would be willing to bet that the longest serving pilot at FIGAS at the moment has about 2000 landings at MPA alone over the last 20+ years with the previous two longest servers exceeding that. In fact as a collective the FIGAS pilots (current and retired) have well in excess of 120 years collective experience and 120000 landings in the Falklands, probably in excess of 10,000 landings at MPA in every weather condition year around. I am not aware of a single landing incident regarding a FIGAS aircraft at MPA although I am standing by to be corrected on this.
If this experience was to be tapped into along with a common sense approach along the lines of Madeira for inexperienced crews this should be easily resolved.
A simple way of data gathering in the short term if aircraft are prohibited from landing might be for MPA to request transiting aircraft to fly the approach lanes and provide PIREP's.
I would be interested to know how many weather related landing occurrences that have been at MPA. I know of one years ago regarding the hero. On the third, and final, approach they banged it in and required a heavy landing check. The alternative had been to divert to SA. Bizarre thing was they had experienced a similar event the day before but committed aviation again with an almost identical forecast.
The sad reality of this is that due to this over the top reaction to a risk analysis it is far more likely to cause a death to a medical patient awaiting extraction.
By closing the airfield to almost all (helicopters it seems are unaffected by turbulence) prevents the embarrassment of explaining to military personnel why they are not going home today despite the LATAM flight arriving / departing and FIGAS doing likewise.