A New Airport

[PAXboy]

I know that this will soon move to Airports and Routes but what news! Not just a new airport but an airport where none has gone before ...

The British territory of St Helena, in the south Atlantic, has been given approval to build its first airport.
Full story BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4350605.stm) Quoting further:
Currently, the last remaining "Royal Mail Ship", the RMS St Helena is the only public form of access to the island and comes to the end of her working life in 2010. It takes 14 days for the ship to sail from the UK to St Helena, two days from Ascension Island and seven days from Cape Town.

The new airport will be located on Prosperous Bay Plain - on the eastern coast of the island. It will incorporate a total runway length of 2250 metres, suitable for planes as large as the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-800.

[tyne]

Great news for the island but if you are building from scratch would it not be sensible to make the runway capable of handling L10/11 A330s etc?

A usuful little divert strip for Falklands flights that get into trouble with weather or techical probs.

[ORAC]

St. Helena is the summit of a composite of volcanic cones rising over 4 kilometers from the sea floor. The surface portion is about half the size of the Isle of Wight. (The small size of the island belies the true dimensions of the cone, the base measures 130km in diameter). The island is just 16 km long and only 10 km at its widest. A high central ridge, occupying the major axis, dominates the topography. Radiating from the ridge, deep narrow valleys are incised to depths of up to 300 m. There is little flat agricultural land and, what there is, is needed for cultivation.

There are only 2 flat, arid, areas big enough for a runway. Deadwood Plain and Prosperous Bay Plain. These were looked at by the St Helena Access Feasibility Study.

Deadwood Plain
Deadwood Plain is 450m above sea level and there is meteorological evidence to show that, for around 10% of all occasions in the year, the cloud base is 500ft or less over the plain. This was considered unacceptable in relation to the construction and operation of an airport. Deadwood Plain was therefore rejected as a possible site.

Prosperous Bay Plain
Prosperous Bay, at 320m enjoys a better weather regime than Deadwood Plain (anecdotal evidence).

Three possible runway alignmentss were located on Prosperous Bay Plain. These were:
1. Prosperous Bay – Robinson.
2. Prosperous Bay – Basil-Read.
3. Prosperous Bay - N/S.

1. The Prosperous Bay/Robinson alignment (roughly East/West) would take advantage of the prevailing winds (South East Trade Winds). However, the approach to this runway would be over the high points in the centre of the Island. The validity of this approach was tested against the requirements detailed in Annex 14 to the Chicago Convention (1944). The approach was found to be unacceptable. Examining all possible applications of the proposed alignment, they considered the adoption of a non-standard approach slope (approximately 5.5°). This was then rejected for two reasons:

- Aircraft such as the Boeing B 737 cannot fly a 5.5° approach into a short runway.
- There is no evidence that ASSI (the aviation regulating body for the OverseasTerritories) would license such an approach.

2. The Basil-Read alignment (North West / South East) was evaluated. The approaches to the runway would be over Deadwood Plain. The major weakness of this proposal is that the approach would be over high ground which has a history of low cloud cover. Further, the proposal required that steep approach slopes (igreater than 3.5°) would be required. An Instrument Landing System (ILS) would have to be installed to ensure safe and frequent air operations. Analysis shows that a CAT I ILS would be insufficient and that a much more expensive CAT II ILS would be required. Further, the proposal meant that considerable earthworks would need to be undertaken in the area between Middle Point and Bradley’s to enable such an approach to be used. These earthworks would have had serious impact on the island and added greatly to cost. Even then, it was unclear whether a suitable approach angle, with associated requisite decision heights, could be achieved. This option was therefore rejected.

3. Four options were developed based on a North-South Runway:
- Option 1: A short runway - a Code 2B instrument runway with the aircraft, a turboprop, based on Ascension Island.
- Option 2: A short runway with extension for take-offs – a Code 2B instrument runway with a starter strip to give enhanced take off capability and with the aircraft, a turboprop, based on St Helena.
• Option 3: A medium length runway - a Code 3B instrument runway extended for takeoffs, with an air service provided by a 19 seat business jet or turboprop aircraft.
• Option 4: A long runway - a Code 3C instrument runway with an extension to the take-off run to enable B737 size aircraft to operate. (This would be the longest length feasible).

North/South Option 4 was their recommendation choice.

[Taildragger]

Orac A very clear and concise appraisal, which obviously comes from insider knowledge. Question... Given the not 100% ideal feasability of any of the options, what is the diversion status of option 4. Ascension or return to the mainland.?

[head_girl]

i think you have missed all enicalyth's posts. a great shame.

if your info is obtained from gic limited, dfid or atkins i think you'll find that enicalyth demolished them all and has been instrumental in getting the airport to this stage.

he is a saint. has lived on the island and ascension. is former military. flies or flew big metal. and currently is aussie.

no need for you to know this except if you lot would bother to do a search on the site before giving your pearls of wisdom you might find that someone got there first.

happens all the time on pprune. if you really want to know the airport ins and outs, approach angles, diversions, etops and the works and how the saints got to here from there try enny or [email protected]

or read www.news.co.sh

or read www.the-islander.org.ac

or catrina campbell at dfid

or HE the Governor http://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/governor.htm

or anything with a proper prior search of the net, especially paying attention to things that have been debunked or sorted and already dealt with on this site.

deadwood plain?!! 5.5 deg slope?!! you are beginning to sound like sharon wainwright and just as clueless

[hint: i'm from st helena, enny is from st helena hello? we'm being lectured to agin baas?]

[CarltonBrowne the FO]

Errr... head_girl, I followed all those links, and the most information I could find was "we might have an airport instead of a ship by 2010." (I'm paraphrasing).
Yes, if I was intending to fly there, I would use the email addresses for more detailed information- but unless Orac's post was factually inaccurate I am unclear what you are complaining about?

[PAXboy]

head_girl: I am sorry that we appear to have missed the boat on this but, if the information is inacurate, perhaps you could have corrected it, rather than just send links that need searching and a scattering of rude words?

[ORAC]

St Helena Access Feasibility Study - Oct 2004 (http://www.saint.fm/Options%20Paper%20Public%20Information.pdf)

[Cyrano]

Enicalyth's comments etc in another thread here. (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164964)

Perhaps the mods could merge the two threads?

C.

[head_girl]

carlton browne!

Hi G'day!!

I am complaining that the facts regarding airport feasibility were established as early as 1984 in a joint RAF/RE/CAA study consequent upon the 1982 Falklands Conflict. Extensiv e b-w/infra/colour/false colour photography produced the current Land Use Map. All other sites including Horse Points, Deadwood Plain were shown to be useless and SHG.HMG actually made the Planning Enactments that stand today and declare Prosperous Bay Plain to be the formal airport development site. It wasn't Shelco who first discovered the twin runway philosophy but actually the RAF although they did not disclose the idea. Shelco discovered it quite independently. The CAA through ASSI had made it quite clear that all manner of crackpot ideas were discounted, had been discounted for ever and were not under any circumstances to be aired again. This has not prevented a succession of consultants over six years doing exactly that and even adding a few of their own, the so-called Robinson alignment being a priome example od something drawn on a fag-packet by someone in his London office without visiting the island. Even though it is all nonsense this is meat and drink to the consultants who will start any amount of hares and rig up any amount of stupid postulates so as to knock 'em all down, look clever, trouser millions and walk away whistling softly. Consultants love to rubbish consultants so as HPR, GIC and Atkins are hired (and sometimes fired) we go through the ridiculous farce of repeating the process absolutely ab initio. Despite the fact that the two gummints have decreed that the airport goes on Prosperous Bay Plain because the facts have been established that the only place to put it is there. there is nothing that is in this latest appraisal that wasn't in all the forerunners all the way back to 1984 except perhaps this. SHG, HMG, were highly put out of kilter when Shelco proposed twin runways, verifiable against any statute and a means of paying for it. It made them look as if they were idle incompetents (they are) and they were furious to find that it had ASSI approval. To them it was like being stabbed in the back. So any means had to be found of saving face. They brought in the consultants and conveniently allowed them to recast old ground, giving legs and false credence to any and every crackpot idea. Meantime ASSI mysteriously changed its mind and did not tell Shelco. Thus when the invitations to tender were opened, Shelco being the only compliant tenderer - the others being in breach of the conditions attached to the tender process - were ridiculed for being underfinanced in construction costs. By a stroke of the pen ASSI increased the RESA length from everything they had previously stuck by and did not inform Shelco of the change when they both could have and should have. But this backfired badly because the costs of the N-S alignment proposed by the RAF in 1984 were now excessive. Although everyone party to the discussions knew that the twin solution was best there might be money for one runway now but not two. The W-E had been ruled out from the very beginning for landing. Ooops! the only way out is to let the consultants rehash and reword all the tripe and balderdash spouted since the RAF/RE/CAA had originally spoken. But they had to put a spin on it and also employed desperate delaying tactics to disguise the fact that the real impediment to progress waqs the fact that businessmen not civil servants had come up with the goods. Wriggle as they might and Atkins have wriggled very hard they have not come up with a satisfactory explanation as to why what was known to both SHG and HMG in 1984, and what was independently discovered by Shelco by 1991 is not going to happen. They and their predecessors have not explained why in their "reading lists" they have adhered to considering applications that are effectively debarred through previous consultation and SHG's planning acts. They have considered options when they should have been explaining the facts excluding these very options. All the while they have been trousering fat fees and blocking the very inward investment that SHG claims to be happy to entertain. What investment has ever got past the self-satisfied dug-outs who land up as Governor of the remotest island in the world? Here was an outfit with money to fund a life-saving airport, build tourist attractions and they even were ready to make up the shortfall if it cost more than £26M. Had they been given the go-ahead the airport would have been built to satisfactory completion against all the standards then in force. What would ASSI do now? Close it until RESA extensions were added costing as much as the airport itself by filling in bottomless ravines? a report is only factually accurate when all the facts are made known. The only possible inward investor has been baulked and frustrated at every turn; every consultant has been allowed to warble and pontificate about plans supposedly possible but hung out to dry years before as impossible; and the final masterpiece of sheer spite is to so deface the whole project that the N-S runway that everyone agress is the least best single option that could actually be licenced will be the one that is built after all... with a very short rnway and disproportionate RESAs. Don't get me wrong, RESAs are necessary but to go from 150+150 to 300+300 when this will double or triple the cost wants, er, a little consultancy? Oh I could go on and on but you get the point. The gummints passing this appraisal off on you the taxpayer are hoping that you are not interested in all the shenanigans but that you'll give the nice man with the snake oil bottle his £1.6M just like the other nice men before. And Shelco, do they get the go-ahead then? No. Just a bottle of champagne and a promise that everyone is now on an equal footing. You mean they weren't before?? yeah. Right!

[head_girl]

enicalyth writes and cant even spell himself! make up your mind who is ranting now?

head_girl g’day y’self

I say that all came out in one lump didn’t it? Your pen-name is neither witty nor original and is rather coarse whereas I find “carlton browne the FO” quite an urbane soubriquet. I imagine him to be rather fun. Have you never heard of the “real” Carlton Browne? Possibly not.

If only people would learn to spell and have some decent grammar it would help. It always seems to be people who cannot spell, cannot be bothered to spell-check and who cannot express themselves cogently who claim that it is unimportant. Well it is. It is part of your job to be dispassionate and incisive in your writings and in your decision making. Your post to cb is an example of poor judgement and is highly disrespectful to a professional colleague. Your tone verges on insolence. You could have simply stated that it is possible for a report to be factually correct and yet dishonest at the same time and he would have been happy with that with a few examples. Instead you went on a rant and by your own admission couldn’t even be bothered to finish it off properly. You should do the decent thing and write to cb and apologise.

So if I may, cb, I’ll fill in some gaps. St Helena was cartographically surveyed as h_g says to the International Spheroid of 1926 and the astro survey of 1972. It is a service rule that a document cannot have two classifications except under certain defined rules. Thus the work that was done on the N-S Prosperous Bay Alignment was indeed Confidential but I am not aware that the W-E Alignment was in any way different. It was however weeded and shredded some time before 1989 but its existence and co-ordinates were known in the N-S document even although by amendment they were “struck through” and not erased. The document became Unclassified when Shelco began to survey in the precise same location. No conspiracy theorists need apply because the surveyors were highly skilled civil engineers and airport specialists! Thus for those in SHG and HMG who were prepared to open the safe and look the information was there to hand at least as late as 1989. Paradoxically when a document becomes Unclassified you imagine it might be widely circulated. To the contrary. It is almost immediately destroyed as having no longer any intrinsic value. Post 1989 there may or may not have been quite detailed drawings of the putative airport. I would find it hard to believe that none were in the keeping of His Excellency the Governor but quite believable that all the others would have been weeded to destruction save for one in a drawer somewhere in High Wycombe.

It is quite true that a spin-off of the Survey was the Land Use Map and SHG used its legislative powers to declare which areas were under planning blight as possible sites for the airport. Largely through consultation with the CAA a number of “possible” sites were exposed as unsuitable in any circumstance and these should have been deleted from all further consideration. The fact that they weren’t displays a woeful lack of project management skills on the part of both SHG and DfID who should really have their knuckles badly rapped in some public accounts committee. But this won’t happen.

It is also true that several underhand attempts to stigmatise Shelco were made. Given the list of the “usual suspects” who are quick to jump up on their hind-legs and spout off parish pump politics and given their intellectual skills and debating powers it is a fair guess that they were put up to it. If you correlate dates and times it is not hard to guess who but you are not going to be able to prove it.

There followed a chain of Consultants, none of whom (and not least WS Atkins, the current holder) have distinguished themselves in technical ability, openness. If h_g had said that they all have acted with self-interest, guile and have dishonestly peddled old refuted goods as if new my retort would have been “Hey what’s new?”

Instead h_g has upset me, probably upset cb and orac and achieved exactly the opposite of what she set out to do. You’ve probably all read Atkins report, which by the way was deliberately withheld from me as “secret” and thought to yourself what a well researched, informative and scholarly appraisal. It is in fact a travesty.

I would not be happy going to war with ASSI on the subject of RESAs. But there is more than a touch of hypocrisy here. If for example you take Airbus’ view on the rationale behind RESA it is that as far as they can determine a reasonable assumption is that aircraft are travelling at 70 knots when the dot over the REIL. From there on it is reasonable to calculate stoppage within 240 metres. But BALPA would prefer 300 metres and so would the ICAO. ASSI’s view is that compliance must be absolute and not discretionary even when compliance includes the right to object and apply for a waiver. But standing on the lip of Dry Gut is no place to argue. ASSI are quite right to review and amend their recommendations. If they did not inform Shelco that they had changed their minds as head_girl alleges then that truly is despicable. But if Shelco did not keep abreast of the ICAO recommendations then that too is surely negligent on their part. Whatever your take on this is it is certain that these large RESAs killed off the twin-runway solution for ever. Had the airport been built, no ASSI wouldn’t have closed it… they would have redefined the N-S runway to make it even shorter than at present so cutting down arrival weight.

If in her closing address h_g had said that the nett effect of all this politics was that the public have been misled and we are now right back to square one as in 1984 I would have complimented her on a piece well done. h_g we all have bad days in the office and if this is going to be your best effort I think you had best say sorry to us all and we’ll say no more about it. Better an airport that will do most of what we want and be paid for by the pommies than no airport at all. It would be outrageous after all this if Shelco were to be made to stump up part of the costs and I trust that this will not happen. That would mean the age of the gentleman is past. Come on h_g the age of the lady isn't past too?.

My best regards

enicalyth

[enicalyth]

head_girl

When I give someone a preview of my state of mind on a subject I do not expect them to post it themselves. You read my e-mail and went ahead and published it without any reference to me. But as you have gone ahead and done it I don't particularly mind except to say that that was really bad behaviour. It means you have pre-empted me from writing a considered reply and I have written to hawk asking for a fair right of reply. I really think you should apologise not only to cb but to me also. Really that just is not done.

V. annoyed. You could at least have rung me or something.