They never thought it would be in addition to the ship. Ever since 1979, there were a large number of people, not necessarily islanders, mumbling about the happy day when they would get an airport and dispense with the services of the ship. My first association with the island began in April 1974 when we sailed from Bilbao in the re-built RMS Good Hope Castle that was one of the islands suppliers. The other ship was the RMS Southampton Castle. After they sold the Union-Castle fleet, I went back to tramp ships for two years, before finding my way back to the island service aboard RMS St. Helena (I) We, onboard all took the airport threat with a "pinch of salt," knowing that it would take many years, if ever to complete it. They will always need a sea service to bring in heavy goods, whether the airport ever works or not, but that will most likely be done with charter vessels. They managed with chartered ships for 13 months in 1982/83, whilst we were away in the Falklands. The flights (if the airport had worked OK) were scheduled to be St. Helena - Johannesburg which is really a strange idea, as most Saints that went to South Africa settled in Cape Town.
The whole idea of an air link was to get rid of the subsidised ship for a much cheaper airline service. I am still in contact with many of my old shipmates, the ship itself, and the island. Also, there is a St. Helena group on Facebook where we can all remain in contact . It was an ideal situation for a dinasaur such as myself as it was all so far back in time, and my final communication from the ship with the island in October 1992 was by using morse code because the satellite link was erratic to say the least, and the highest HF frequency that the island teleprinters could offer was 12 mHz, and it was really too far for a telex signal, but the ancient time-honoured morse code signals could, and did, get through with some difficulty provided we had the "ears of a bat!" If you want to read the free weekly island newspaper online, here it is http://independent.saint.fm/latest-issues/
Where you will be kept up to date with all the airport/shipping news, plus everything else that is going on down there.
Bob
[url=http://independent.saint.fm/latest-issues/][/url]
The whole idea of an air link was to get rid of the subsidised ship for a much cheaper airline service. I am still in contact with many of my old shipmates, the ship itself, and the island. Also, there is a St. Helena group on Facebook where we can all remain in contact . It was an ideal situation for a dinasaur such as myself as it was all so far back in time, and my final communication from the ship with the island in October 1992 was by using morse code because the satellite link was erratic to say the least, and the highest HF frequency that the island teleprinters could offer was 12 mHz, and it was really too far for a telex signal, but the ancient time-honoured morse code signals could, and did, get through with some difficulty provided we had the "ears of a bat!" If you want to read the free weekly island newspaper online, here it is http://independent.saint.fm/latest-issues/
Where you will be kept up to date with all the airport/shipping news, plus everything else that is going on down there.
Bob
[url=http://independent.saint.fm/latest-issues/][/url]
