Ascension Island

[interestedparty]

If it's not a state secret would one of you gentlemen tell me what alternates are used for Ascension Island? It seems a long way from anywhere?

[buvenbee-hind]

Dakar

[interestedparty]

Thanks - that's quite a distance I guess..........

[farefield]

You'd usually get there with island holding fuel of at least an hour.The weather is usually quite good at ASI,just the occasional shower moving through fairly quickly,however if the forecast was particularly grobbly you could use Banjul in the Gambia,nearly 3 hours away,or Accra in Ghana,slightly closer.
Every now and again(20 years or so) the weather can turn really nasty and with no precision aids to speak of,you wouldn't want to be arriving with minimum fuel, as a Hercules discovered in about 1984.The skipper got it in though after briefing what they would do in the final resort of ditching.

[rivetjoint]

I think thats why the RAF like you to have a Yellow Fever jab should you decide to take BEagle Airways down there.

[canberra]

everyone in the british forces is supposed to have a yellow fever jab every 10 years. note that i said supposed! there was a world wide shortage of yellow fever vaccine a few years ago.

[Art Field]

It might be of interest to note that St Helena (700nm from ASI) is about to build a runway although I doubt it will be very long since they hardly have enough flat ground for a cricket pitch I believe. Will have to be a reasonable length to accomodate aircraft with the range to get there with reserves for ASI. I'm not too sure about the weather, when we went to have a look in 82 we only saw about a sq ft of solid ground through the cloud.

[knowitall]

Actually their going to build two runways!

Quite a novel sollution to their problems

See more info here at www.shelco.sh

[Rude C'man]

Brize !

[Reheat On]

[Lingua in mucosum]

Am I not right in thinking that Rio has been proved as an alternative as well on the northbound trip ;)

Ill advised to carry live externals however - causes the local air attaché loss of sleep

[BEagle]

Unfortunately we often have to use ASI as the staging base when going elsewhere - even though it can barely support more than a few aeroplanes at once.

But last time I was there it was an utter disgrace - not through any fault of theirs though. We found a signal from ASI telling Ar$ecot that they hadn't enough room, we could easily have planned to route via Dakar. But no, the bean counters wouldn't have it.....

Made the point to Ar$ecoat that we should route back from Africa direct to Dakar and thence home but again, "No - we don't want all those soldiers overnight there - they'd cause too much trouble" Made the point that ASI would be even more stretched than on the outbound leg - but was told by the desk-sucking idiots at Ar$ecoat that they'd only approve such a revitin if I declared that to stay overnight at ASI in the known circumstances would be a Flight Safety hazard. Blackmail like that we can do without!!

ASI is a shadow of what you remember, Art Field. Supreme Commander Allied Forces Ascension Island runs the place with a tiny staff, much of it has been contractorised even further. The 'aircrew bashas' have long since been given up, the OM is closed - and even the some of the portakabin pigsties in Timmy Village have been handed over to the contractors.

ASI - best avoided at all costs!!

[Idontcare]

Ar$ecot - I think I can see what you've done there, very clever.

[Art Field]

Sad to hear of Ascensions decline though many from both VC10 and Victor fleets will remember the accomodation offered during the F4 recovery from Mt Pleasant with little affection.

With regard to the St Helena runways, they do indeed have a novel solution although I wonder about the landing runway length for an emergency after a max weight T/O.

Reheat On. In my experience Air Attaches, like their diplomatic brothers, don't lose sleep willingly or with any grace for the likes of us waterfront (but now retired) mortals.

[Firestreak]

After looking at Beagle's thinly disguised moan at not being able to stay in a 5* hotel in Dakar instead of a night at ASI, let me tell you a true story that happened on ASI one night when the fighting was happening.

A Nimrod crew had landed back at ASI after shall we just say a very fraught sortie down south; at the time, there were some pretty rotten living conditions for the many people living on the island. In the Volcano Club that night was a Herc crew who were making an awful lot of noise about the dreadful rates they had 'earned' in Dakar the night before and how bad it was to have to slum it on ASI the next night. The Nimrod crew were, quite justifiably, about to take these people apart until a sensible person explained to the Herc crew they ought to leave whilst they still could.

Diversions? For some of us, we didn't have one.

[BEagle]

Sorry - I resent stupid ill-informed comment.

The decision to require us to stay at ASI was purely down to some 2 Gp movements idiot being unable to accept that our happy Army passengers would behave sensibly at Dakar. Had we gone that way, instead of wasting half a day at ASI, they'd have been back sooner and would have had more than the 4 hours' sleep that they were due to get before having to be up at o-dark-hundred the next day before their royal visit.

The Army behaved impeccably at ASI - as they would have done at Dakar - due to their RSM ordering them to stay off the pop.

And ooh - what a jolly interesting war story.......

[Lionel Lion]

Perhaps Beagle instead of airing your dirty laundry in public, you could take a posting to 2 Gp and help their predicaments since you obviously know better

Thought not

[BEagle]

Not my dirty laundry - just an example of how, when a forward base clearly advises that it is maxxed out and that flights should not be planned to route through it, their concern is totally ignored by those who should have listened.

The same people to whom the fact that another 2 aerodromes elsewhere had significant work in progress which limited their use came as a total surprise.....

Lions tasked by.......

No further comment on this subject - the point has been made. And it's nothing to do with $odding hotels! All crews want is somehwere to get sufficient sleep and they don't give a rat's where that happens to be. For example, personally I quite like the odd night on base at AKR - but not trying to sleep through waves of APC launches and recoveries during the day if there's an o-dark-hundred departure time. It's only commonsense really and I find it hard to understand why the issue always raises such emotion from certain quarters.

[kippermate]

Wasn't the question about diversion, or did I miss something? I've held Robert's Monrovia as an alternative to Island Holding, but i don't think that that would be very popular now.
:confused:

[Farfrompuken]

Once you get beyond your LPD for Dakar (Southbound)/Recife (Northbound) you have no alternative.
You will carry Island Holding fuel, enough for 60 mins at optimum hold height, and a bit for mum.

Wx normally very predictable, however 'no notice' rainstorms can hit, lasting up to 4 hours-enough to ruin your day.:)

[Wycombe]

.....must've been one of those "no-notice rainstorms" last time I was there, the noise on the roofs in Tri* Village during the night was unbelievable!

Already on an unsched n/s due to poor wx further S (:D ), could then not depart ASI until the Wx there was suitable for a visual approach following a problem on departure (ASI VOR u/s, NDB only aid available :) )

Ahhh, the joys of the South Atlantic Sched!

[Mmmmnice]

Beags - I'm sure you've got a valid point (heaven forbid anyone on this forum posting without a valid point - guilty again your honour) but:
bar the odd transit shocker involving a sixpack of Castle and a large Temazepam, I have some very happy memories of Asi; when a lot of folk lived in relative squalor but got on with the job, drank an awful lot and got suntanned into the bargain - and no-one expected much more! and it beat the hell out of pissing in that drainage ditch at Dakar! Happy days

[newswatcher]

http://www.shelco.sh/airport.asp