St. Helena Service

[Ddraig Goch]

Round the island Flights

http://whatthesaintsdidnext.com/2017...fe-completely/

[WHBM]

I think this is the first mention we have seen that there is a regular service into St Helena, that Basil Read, the airport contractors, have a monthly chartered Bombardier Challenger coming in. Someone commented above that it was surprising to see it in a corner of the RAF Hercules photo.

If I am not mistaken, we have had a range of aircraft now come in, and the only one that needed a missed approach (one) was the Comair 737. Presumably the Challenger operator has no difficulties with it.

[Broken Biscuits]

Lord Ashcroft flies in

From the latest edition of the St Helena Independent, it appears that Lord Ashcroft has finally flown into the island. About the middle of last year, his pilots had said it was too dangerous to land, after the Comair reports of windshear.

I think he uses a Falcon 900EX so undoubtedly had the option to use Runway 02 if landing from the north was a bit too sporty.

[lolder]

I think it's a 7X.
I've watched the Comair B737-800 approach video many times. The first go-around from landing configuration ( triggered by a windshear alert ) I though the aircraft was clearly in a position to continue the landing. The second landing I thought was a well executed crosswind landing. I do not question that there is clearly heavy turbulence from horizontal vortexes and a crosswind that changes from a smooth, significant one to a lesser very turbulent one back to a significant crosswind with the normally associated turbulence. Most of the turbulence is encountered over 1000 ft above ground. I did not see any out of control gyrations. The fact is as you approach the runway, vertical downdrafts decrease because wind can't blow into the ground. There are even dust devils visible on either side of the runway on the touchdown segment so we know it was challenging.
WeatherUnderground shows the wind at St. Helena on April 18, 2016 noon at about 17 mph out of the SE. Reports an hour before and after were 19 and 20 mph. The Comair report allegedly said that winds over 23 mph. were unsafe.

[Wycombe]

Someone commented above that it was surprising to see it in a corner of the RAF Hercules photo.

It was me commenting on the C130J video that I linked in, the tail visible at the end is to me clearly that of a Falcon (with satcom antenna on top of fin) rather than a Challenger (which would have a T-tail).

[lolder]

SA Airlink confirmed it would take delivery of an ETOPS ERJ 190 in the first half of 2017 to have the ability to serve St. Helena: South Africa's Airlink confirms plans for E170s, 190s - ch-aviation.com

[Ddraig Goch]

Another Medevac to Cape Town

From the latest Sentinel paper:

Another successful emergency aero-medi-
cal evacuation from St Helena Airport took
place on the weekend to transfer three pa-
tients, accompanied by a St Helena staff
member, to Cape Town.
The Falcon 20 aircraft, operated by Guard-
ian Air, arrived at St Helena Airport at
around 11.25hrs on Sunday 15 January
2017. Everything went as planned and the
fl ight departed for Cape Town at 07.50hrs
this morning, Monday 16 January 2017.
The fl ight takes four hours and the estimated
arrival time in Cape Town is 11.50hrs (St
Helena time).
SHG, 16 January 2017

[Broken Biscuits]

Embraer Video:

A very smart video from Embraer about their recent flights to and around St Helena.

https://www.facebook.com/Embraer/vid...3497558755741/

[Ddraig Goch]

Air Service Tender

Follow this link for an appraisal of the Air Service Tender by Darrin Henry of What the Saints did Next:

https://whatthesaintsdidnext.com/201...ervice-tender/

[atakacs]

Just wondering - is there anything specific about the E170/190 that other similar types can't do ? Or did Embraer pull off something unique ETOPS-wise ?

[lolder]

They can do steep 5.5º approaches as required at London City and can have 15 kt. tail wind components and the heaviest E 190 can carry 100 passengers for over a 61/2 hour maximum endurance. I think they both have 120 minute ETOPS range. They have short landing distance requirements which will let them land downwind on Rnwy. 02 at St. Helena. It appears the E 190 can go non-stop from CPT to HLE with island reserves or ASI as an alternate.

[Ddraig Goch]

Some news in the latest Saint Helena Independent from Comair with a "strange" demand :

.....make use of the unused part at the end of the runways on the newly built St Helena Airport.

Full article at Latest issues | The St Helena Independent | St Helena's 1st ever online newspaper

Is she talking about RESA?

[Broken Biscuits]

RESA info

DG I guess they are talking about the RESA. Runway 20 has a displaced threshold 300m from the northern end of the concrete, and a dirt RESA at the southern end, extending 300m from the end of the concrete (i.e. the top of the Dry Gut fill).

Runway 02 has no displaced threshold ; it's RESA is specified as the concrete area to the north of the displaced threshold. The actual paved area is 1925m long.

All according to the planning documents available online, e.g. see http://www.sainthelenaaccess.com/app...CI-01-1003.pdf. I think these original drawings are more or less what has been built in this regard.

I wonder if COMAIR want to remove the displaced threshold for runway 20? Would that be helpful with the wind shear problem? Perhaps they would like the government to pave the RESA at the southern end, in which case you're talking significant money (although not as much as demolishing King and Queen Rocks, which others have talked about).

Having a paved area at the southern end would help perhaps - any overrun would not damage the aircraft like would happen if it ran onto dirt. Provided it didn't drop off the end, that is!

[lolder]

The landing distance for 02 is listed as 5036 ft. There is about a 300 ft displaced threshold on 02 and apparently they are not including the last 1000 ft either. This is madness ! The whole 6397 ft. pavement should be available for 02 landing distance. There is an unpaved 500 ft. before the 02 pavement also. The B 737-800 data shows a landing distance of 5600 ft. at 30º flaps, no wind and reasonable landing weight.

[Ddraig Goch]

Thank you Broken Biscuits and Lolder for those explanations. It does seem silly that the whole runway distance can't be used, could it be another faux pas by the authorities?

[lolder]

It probably has to do with some airport certifying agency's method of insuring that if there is an accident they can't be blamed. It's a class C airport and will always be challenging. Because of the cliffs they don't want undershoots or overruns which eventually end up only allowing a helicopter to land in the middle of the runway.

[lolder]

ICAO RESA lengths are 90 m. minimum and 300 m. recommended. The certifying agency for St. Helena ASSI has apparently applied the 300 m. length to both ends of St. Helena's runway. Since the approach end of 20 has no under-run, the entire 300 m. is subtracted from the paved length. There is about a 200 m. under-run at the approach end of 02 so only 100 m. was subtracted from the pavement there. The originally contracted carrier Comair apparently applied to ASSI to reduce the RESAs to 90 m. and that request was recently denied as "inappropriate". That's how the 1950 m. runway length became 1535 m. for landing on 02. ( A 5 meter discrepancy floats around somewhere in the math that I don't understand. )

[42go]

There is no way a 737 is going in with those figures!

[BA318]

A TAG Aviation 757 is to make a flight to St. Helena.


Best value flights to St.Helena | Atlantic Star Airlines

[Ddraig Goch]

BA318, I hope your post is correct but I couldn't find anything about the flight on ASA's website. Have you got inside knowledge?