With the completion of the new runway and air traffic control tower at Camp Bastion in Helmand it is now capable of receiving the largest aircraft.
In the recent post on the future of tactical transport I covered the runway extension at Bastion/Leatherneck
The runway at Bastion has been continually improved, quoting from my favourite magazine,concrete monthly;
A small team of British Army Royal Engineers is getting close to the end of an ambitious 10-month project to build a second runway at the Task Force Helmand Task Force’s logistics hub, Camp Bastion, in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.
The new 7,710-foot-long runway, due to be completed in December, will enable the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) C-17A Globemaster aircraft to fly direct to Camp Bastion from the United Kingdom, greatly increasing the speed of the onward distribution of freight and supplies throughout the province. The C-17A Globemaster is the latest addition to the RAF’s fleet of transport aircraft and is capable of rapid, strategic delivery of troops and all types of cargo to main or forward operating bases anywhere in the world.
The new runway will replace the temporary gravel landing zone constructed by the 39th Engineer Regiment in March this year. Currently C-17A aircraft can only land at Kandahar Airfield because of the gravel runway at Camp Bastion, so Hercules C-130 aircraft are used to ferry freight between Kandahar to Camp Bastion. The Hercules C-130 aircraft will also benefit from the new runway as they will be able to carry more weight on landing – be it troops or supplies.
October 2007 Issue
From 2008 Operation MERGE was initiated to improve the facilities again, in order to support the USMC deployment to Helmand, notably the Camp Leatherneck 1, 2 and 3 phases. As part of this operation and in order to operate the largest of aircraft like the AN-124 , C5 Galaxy and commercial aircraft like 747’s the runway at Bastion has been supplemented with a new build. This new 11,500ft runway will run parallel to the one mentioned above, which will now operate as a taxiway. When completed the new runway may also enable direct flights usingTristar’s rather than them flying into Kandahar, 25 odd times per month.
Now the second runway or flightline is fully operational no time has been wasted in getting the larger aircraft in, in fact, the largest aircraft in the world.
From the RAF operational update for March 6th
With both the new runway and ATC Tower now complete, Camp Bastion has been able to host a variety of interesting visitors. On 4 Mar 11, Bastion received its first visit from an Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft and on 7 Mar 11, the larger Antonov AN-225 flew into theatre. Whilst the ‘smaller’ version can carry a payload of up to 150 Tonnes, this is dwarfed by its 6-engine bigger sister. The only one in the world of this model, the AN-225 has a wingspan of 88m (290ft) and carry up to 250 Tonnes of freight.
Perhaps the best quote is from Captain Jeff Steele, the director of safety and standardization for US Marine Aerial Refueler Transport squadrons deployed in support of operations in Afghanistan
What they’ve built here is a commercial class airport, without the terminal
It would also allow B-1′s and B-52′s to operate if the US decided to have a pop at Iran!
So we’ve built a runway longer than Heathrow to let rot in 2014. Expensive pursuit, war.
off topic but having some relevance, one of the reasons given lynham closing was the runway needed upgrading/repairing and it would cost too much. Well it seems we have a bunch of royal engineers with runway building on their CV!!
I was told by several RAF officer contacts in the 90′s that the moment they started to upgrade the runway, they knew it was time to pack as the base would be closed withing the the next 18 months.
IXION you are so right. It is the same for other assets, as soon as we have spent time and money upgrading it the MoD scraps it. Jaguar, Harrier Tornado and even Typhoon T1s seem to be for the scrap heap!!!
Sadly, this kind of ‘invest just before we stop using it’ approach is hardly unusual for the MoD.
Saw that vile n*b Bob Ainsworth on Newsnight last night, pontificating about how scrapping the Harrier GR9 would stop us from enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya. Our ex-defence sec was so pig ignorant he didn’t even know the just-grounded model wasn’t a fighter and didn’t do SEAD or CAP.
It puts the ‘invest and scrap’ cretinism in context. They’re not going to use the brand new surfacing to bomb Iran with bigger planes, they’re just cretins who can’t manage anything. They’ll probably build a lido there next. Or a pork pie factory. F***wits.
What Mat said – if you want to understand how we got into this mess, just listen to as much as you can stand of Bob Ainsworth :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00zf25m/Newsnight_09_03_2011/
The defence stuff is the first item, so it starts properly at 2 minutes in, BA and Dannatt are on at 11:30. It really is scary how clueless the last Defence Secretary is.
if you ever go on ARRSE in their arrseipedia TCH is there used as a callsign for a certain def sec it stands for “that c**t hoon, quite possibily the most hated def sec ever. The man was so rude to everyone, private through to general
I think the deal was the US paid for the new runway and the UK paid for the new control tower
US logistics people looked at Bastion and just found it not fit for purpose – for supporting the USMC- so it had to change – not a UK initiative
I head his nickname was “Buff”, as in Buff Hoon…
that was when in polite company, every other time he was just known as TCH. he was arrogant,ignorant twat!
IXION; March 10, 2011 at 11:37 am.
I remember hearing somewhere that a sizeable sum of money was spent upgrading and refurbishing the runway, airfield buildings, and quarters at RAF Khormaksar shortly before the decision was made to withdraw British forces from Aden.
it was a trick used to shutdown railway stations once upon a time.
Spend a fortune on upgrading facilities, the station then ceases to be profitable, and it can be closed.
Maybe a civil servant just got confused?