Ascension Island
 

Can somebody please explain to me why the Falklands run now misses out Ascension?

Issues with the A330 and the runway at Wideawake

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...island-flights

http://www.ascension-island.gov.ac/s...ension-island/

Google "Ascension island runway" - lots on it.

I have a friend http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...-airfield.html
His name is Google

Ascension Islanders left stranded after RAF halts flights - BBC News

Ascension Islanders left stranded after RAF halts flights

By Alastair Leithead BBC News, Africa correspondent

• 9 hours ago

Ascension Island, home to around 800 people, is even more cut off than it used to be after weekly flights linking the island to the UK were stopped - due to a dodgy runway and the wrong kind of RAF aircraft. The British overseas territory is the tip of an old volcano in the Atlantic Ocean, mid-way between Africa and Brazil. It's so remote, that when the Portuguese discovered it on Ascension Day in 1501, they didn't even bother colonising it.

"Half of the island looks like the surface of the moon, the other half looks like Mars, but in a good way," says Caroline Yon, station manager for the European Space Agency tracking station on Ascension. "But I wouldn't want to put anyone off. We do have gorgeous white sandy beaches, and pristine clear blue seas absolutely jam-packed with marine life - it's a very unique place."
Image caption View from Green Mountain across volcanic cinder cones The island, which covers around 45 square miles just south of the equator, is formed by around 40 volcanic peaks.
It is rough and rugged - barren in parts - but at its heart has a lush peak known as Green Mountain, home to rare bird colonies which are the result of a unique botanical experiment led by Charles Darwin.

"We have the second largest turtle colony in the Atlantic Ocean," says Johnny Hobson, the island's dentist who has lived on the island for 31 years. "Outside our house at the moment there are baby turtles erupting on a beautiful golden beach," he says. "Everyone's finding it hard to get to and from Ascension at the moment. Currently the only real way off for most of us is an eight or nine day journey by sea to Cape Town and to fly back to the UK that way - at a cost of £3000-4000 for the round trip and the ship, the RMS St Helena, only passes by every three weeks."

Johnny, who also owns a hotel and car hire business, tells me visitors to the island have increased steadily over the past few years. Some were going to St Helena, the nearest landmass some 700 km to the southeast, while others included deep sea fishermen, conservationists and people arriving to see the turtles. "Last year we had five or six thousand visitor nights," he says.
But with the end of the weekly flights all that has changed and businesses are quickly collapsing.

The runway, designed as an emergency landing strip for the Space Shuttle, is maintained by the US military. It used to be one of the longest in the world but now badly needs maintenance, and while there's a plan to have the tarmac repaired by 2020, the Airbus A330 Voyager aircraft the RAF uses to land on the island is no longer suitable. The Ministry of Defence says it is committed to running an air bridge between the UK and the Falkland Islands, but not necessarily to Ascension. The plane was very convenient as it stopped off on the island to refuel, but now it lands on Cape Verde, and the residents have been left somewhat stranded.

"Well basically it was the hub, so all the flights came here before they went on to the Falklands - the planes, the ships came here," said Jacqui Ellick whose husband's job brought them to the island 22 years ago. She's an elected island councillor, volunteers for the local newspaper and manages the interns who come each year to monitor the turtles.

"There are other planes that can land here, just not the A330. At the moment the American planes still land here and the MoD have a C17 once a month for their own people, but for the rest of us there is no way off except for the ship. It's such a big question. I don't think there's anyone in the foreign office or the government with the time and inclination to sit down and sort it out," says Caroline Yon. "But it would be a shame if the island couldn't continue."

A UK government spokeswoman said: "We know that the rerouting of the South Atlantic air bridge flights has caused difficulties for those on Ascension Island and we are working closely with relevant parties to find and agree alternative access arrangements as quickly as possible."

Nothing on it at the moment... :rolleyes:

Several inaccuracies with the beeb report AFAIK:
The runway was not "designed as an emergency landing strip for the space shuttle" and neither did it "used to be one of the longest in the world".:rolleyes:
Furthermore, no one has the right of permanent residence on the island, all are there under arrangement for HMG or, as required by other Governments under agreements. ;)

OAP

MATELO - Must be you mate, for Ascension Island Runway I got:

Quote - "About 1,010,000 results (0.74 seconds)":ok:

I have a superb etching of Ascension Island from Cotswold Etchings. Available on a well known bay site.

:ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

....whoosh; fair cop!!

Would that be the one you use to sell your old aircrew socks and shreddies?

When I was operating on 216 Sqn Trimotors, I accompanied SATCO and OC 216 doing a runway inspection around 1992/3. The runway was full of cracks even then.

A contributory factor was (particularly) Trimotors arrivals within quite a tight area and with the high tyre pressures and the nature of the Tristar's undercarriage caused quite a lot of damage when compared with other aircraft types.

Reckon it's more of the same, 8 mainwheels at high tyre pressures on Voyager ?

Runways take wear and tear. ;)

OAP

P'raps we should ask The Trump to sort-out his runway............... or leave; happy Independence Day.

Personally I would have a go at St Helena but I suspect the Voyager boys and girls would find that just a little short. :)

Already alluded to it in another thread but wonder what consequences this has on transatlantic flight planing (especially Europe <> south America) as this airstrip could not be considered as a decent alternative anymore.

Ascension is the Atlantic version of Diego Garcia , British Dependency partly/mostly leased to the Americans as a 'milaterry faciliteh'. Ask any awkward questions of the Yanks and they refer you to the F&CO, Ask the F&CO and they tell you to speak to the US .

If I recall correctly the airfield -Wideawake Field was built in WW2 as part of a south about route for US aircraft to get to the middle east via Brazil and Africa.

I worked for a UK company that had interests there and back in the day the only practical way on and off was via RAF flights that took passengers but only from UK Gov or related organisations and along with these was NASA tracking station and the USAF who leased the airport and related facilities. Ascension was very very important in the Falklands war , basically it could not have been contemplated without it.

It is an irony that just after the UK Government shells out for a lovely new runway/airport in 'neighbouring' St Helena the Ascension islanders lose their runway. Of course if oil/extremists/anyone DT doesnt like appear in somewhere like DRC or Angola or Brazil the runway will be repaired in a heartbeat but theres no sign of that.

Given their combined population of about 5500 People the three S Atlantic islands St H , Ascension and falklands have cost the UK tax payer one hell of a lot of money in the last 30 odd years just to cling on to vestiges of Empire. Still no doubt Liam Fox will be keen to negotiate a trade agreement with them

Yes, but it does not smell.

Atakacs,

Ascension really has no part to play in modern commercial trans-atlantic planning. Doesn't even apoear on the charts really.

By modern I take it you mean post 2013?

Incident: Delta B772 over Atlantic on Jan 9th 2013, engine trouble

Pax b et al, Get this right, there are NO "Ascension Islanders". You can't even remain if you die there! :\

OAP

OAP, but there is a cemetery. I neglected to get any photos when I was there. I got someone on Serco to agree to take individual grave photos, sent them an box of film and heard nothing thereafter.

Interesting. I was under the impression that it was definitely considered in diversion scenario.

Yes, from the 1700's. :sad:

OAP

there are graves from WW1 era on Ascension definitely.

https://graveyarddetective.com/tag/ascension-island/

Yes, you might be right. :rolleyes:

There are no Dinosaur bones there! :}

OAP

Many are well before WW1. Remember Ascension was on the Admiralty books as a Sloop and guardship for St Helena.

I think the graves illustrated here were at Comfortless Cove. I found the following link on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site:

http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/...NEW%20CEMETERY

Quite sobering if you look at the number of graves. Found 8 war graves, 7 from WW 1 and one from WW2.

Was not the Xymotic Hotel named for the isolation hospital on the site which housed yellow fever sufferers in the days of sail. Their remains would certainly never have been repatriated.

I just used the phrase Ascension islanders to cover longer term workers from UK and also a significant number of St Helena islanders 2who work on the Ascension facilites.

I always knew it was hard to get to I didnt realise that you couldnt stay even if you died.

Were trans (south ) atlantic ETOPS dependent on Ascension f or can they manage without it now the single engine times have increased, I know it was not advertised as such but that flights had landed there when there were problems.

Bing/atakacs...

Just to second Flap's comments whilst the Delta diversion is of interest I thought the question posed was the use of Ascension as a alternate on Europe - South America services.

Most of those flights tend to have a route which goes "feet wet" off Morocco or even further north, Routes over or abeam Tenerife, and then uses the likes of Dakar at the northern end and Recife or Fortaleza at the southern side as nominated ETOPS alternates... ETOPS planning aside I've never seen ASI as being anything like "nearest suitable" on those routes it is simply too far off to the east.

The Delta flight that did go there was obviously routing from a North America to South Africa, so not surprised ASI was more likely going to come into play.

Pax b, Yes, it is quite difficult to even visit. HMG don't want anyone to have permanent status there as that would involve liabilities and expense. The best you can do (other than work there) is a short visit, with permission!

OAP

Asi Cemetery
 

Have a look here-there seem to be lots of graves:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...!4d-14.4175675

Pontious, the 4 pictures in that link show the main cemetery just south of Georgetown. I think Bonetta Cemetery is behind Comfortless Cove and is on the northwest of the island. The graves there are much more rudimentary, all above ground basically just piles of volcanic rock. I was told that people with yellow fever were offloaded at that part of the island as it was remote from HMS Bonetta hence the name.
Great place to spend a couple of weeks with a good crew.

[IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/v63pea.jpg[/IMG]
http://i68.tinypic.com/x3bjuh.jpg
http://i63.tinypic.com/e9fehj.jpg

Sorry they are not great quality.

One of the older bit of Georgetown.

http://i65.tinypic.com/svow08.jpg

A little short? Surely all it needs is a very large brave pill and size 13 boots, steel toe cap, braking hard for the use of?!

Joking apart, what's the largest aircraft to ever have been fitted with a drag 'chute? Victors had them. I wonder how hard it would be to put one on the A330? I guess the APU is in the way...

Msbarrat, Concorde had a TBC, but military wise, B47, B52.

msbbarrett. Just attach one to a ring bolt, and watch it pull the tail off. Most aircraft with chutes were designed to have them. Not so airliners (concorde excepted)

Early Caravelles and some Tupolev airliners were certainly fitted with brake parachutes.

I think I have seen them on aircraft as large as a KC767 but as part of the test equipment.