a veiled criticism?
Hi h_g!
I think that we met at NLK? Whatever happens there is for the authorities to decide and GR to implement under the Island Administration.
While the Islands have many similarities they have many more dissimilarities. If you gently mock our attempts at air access through a comparison with NLK you do neither island a favour.
Anyway I cant remember posting 300+1400+300 for the runway, that must have come out in conversation over lunch when I explicitly said 90 (+ 60 threshold displacement for obstacle clearance) + 1620 + 240 was adjudged by most participants to be perfectly acceptable and on Arup's alignment not Phoney Robinson's.
The issue at NLK is one of resurfacing and extending the RESAs over sidelong ground with either one or two roadway portals for road traffic. There are no other alignments possible.
Nevertheless the NLK airport procedures are not inherently unsafe (and if as I suspect you are an F100 pilot there is a third issue of your airline conducting flights under domestic rules whereas the kiwis go international oceanic despite being nearer). ((Are the GPS DAPs effective yet? Do you still fly to 90nm and turn back for Brisi if the mists are bad?)) However the ZHH plates are potentially unsafe because professional pilots are being excluded from the discussions whereas NLK pilots are included and the plates are good.
We can't even begin to think of approving rule bending, we have to plan for 180-min ETOPs and the next person to suggest a dirt strip and a DHC Caribou or an airship is dead.
St Helena intends to conform with ICAO recommendations from day one. The problem is that private enterprise is anathema to the UK Colonial Gummint chaps. If they yield to the proposals of Shelco and airport civil engineers Ove Arup and Partners then they are guilty of wasting ten years' time and money. While not being a conspiracy theorist I do find it strange that a) Ascension is still effectively militarily controlled and b) STH has no airport. Yet these two remote fastnesses, shut-off from public gaze are often roadsteads for gigantic containerised munitions ships of the USN. The Uk and US Governments like it that way I suspect but I don't bow down to conspiracy to deny access, just a merely curious suggestion that gains legs every day decisions are postponed.
If you have trouble with the safety aspects of NLK please do not make any unwarranted comparisons with the soon-to-be ZHH. Not to say that ZHH will be any better but frankly it doesn't do to ridicule however faintly nor to damn with faint praise the efforts of an island to achieve stature and self-determination.
I am not the easiest chap I know and I unintentionally ruffle feathers. If I upset you by joshing about "puddle-jumpers" then it's a joke h_g, not a personal slight and I would happily return to a DHC-8 out of ANU and Back Every Afternoon for the good life.
But it doesn't pay, life moves on and events move you with it. Big Bird or Little Bird we are both pilots.
Thanks for your call tho' and please help St Helena to get safely into the air.
Rgds The E