Window3

My trip to Ascension.

THE TRIP

As I mentioned at the begining of this site,in June 1997 an RAF Tornado F3 landed at Ascension after suffering a rear end fire. The aircraft was in no fit state to fly and it was decided it would not be cost effective to send a repair team down to fix it.So the services of the Aircraft Recovery and Transportation Flight were called upon.Our job would be to fly down to Ascension,strip the aircraft,load it on to a hired Belfast aircraft and get it back to the UK.So at the end of June a team comprising of airframe and propulsion technicians,an electrician and weapons technicians borded an RAF Tristar and headed to Ascension.

The Tornado aircraft has the ability to be able to sweep its wings.This causes a few problems when it comes to removing them.Each wing rotates round a wing pin.These pins are a very tight fit indeed.So tight infact the only way to fit or remove them is to cool then in liquid nitrogen first.Unfortunatly there is no liquid nitrogen on Ascension,so we were going to have to take our own.The only way to do this was to fly a container of it down to Ascension by Hercules transport aircraft.This nitrogen had to be escorted so myself and one other had to make the two day trip in the Hercules.This would mean an overnight stop in Dakar,Senegal.

So two days after the main party had left for Ascension I was on my way.We took off from RAF Lynham in the early hours of the morning on the first leg of the journey,the eight hour flight to Dakar. The flight took us over the Canary Islands and then on into Dakar.

The Hotel we stopped at was very nice.Not at all what i had expected after driving through the poverty stricken streets of Dakar. Apparently it is a very popular destination amongst French tourists.Anyway after arriving we showered,changed,covered ourselves in mosquito repellant and headed out to a local restaurant. I ordered steak,which came served with chips on a plank of wood.It tasted very nice although I am not sure what animal it had come from.

After a good nights worrying about the mosquitos,we borded the Hercules and took off for Ascension.The final part of the flight took six hours and we arrived in Ascension mid afternoon. We off loaded the nitrogen and all the other kit we had brought,said hello to the rest of the team,who had already started stripping the Tornado,and headed off to Travellers Hill to find our room and get some sleep.

THE JOB

The next day we had Breakfast in the Airmans mess and headed back down to Wideawake airfield to carry on stripping the Tornado.Quite a lot of the strip had already been completed such as the engines and the ejection seats.It was only the big stuff that remained. The first job was to get the wings off which was now possible with the arrival of the liquid nitrogen.

Very cold As you can see in this picture,the nitrogen is poured over the wing pin while a hydraulic extractor pulls underneath.Once the pin is cold enough it contracts and slides out of its housing.The wing can then be removed.

After the wings had been removed then the fin had to come off aswell.The tailerons closely followed along with smaller items like the pitot probe at the front of the aircraft.After boxing all the removed items up we were pretty much finished. We now had a week to wait for the Belfast to fly in before we could load up. Fin off

THE STAY

We now had over a week to wait.A lot of how we spent our time has been described on previous pages on this site. A lot of the time was spent at English Bay,snorkelling,swimming and sunbathing.We had a pleasure boat trip out to Boatswain Bird Island and fishing trips were organised for those who wanted them. Some of the team made regular trips to the islands one and only golf course.This is an experience in itself as there are no greens,only "browns."

We were lucky enough to be given a Land Rover for the duration of our stay so transport around the island was no problem.We made the most of it and tried to see as many parts of the island as possible. There are not a lot of cars on the island,so on the rare occasion when you pass one you have to wave.Also if you are out walking don`t be surprised if people keep stopping and asking if you want a lift.

We made a couple of visits to Green Mountain and completed some of the walks that you can take there. Some of us also completed two of the other walks on the island.The walk up to Sisters Peak and the walk up Ladyhill.

Evenings were spent in the bar at Travellers Hill and either in the Volcano Club or the outdoor cinema at the US base. Two of the team took their own fishing tackle down to the pierhead in Georgetown and tried a bit of night fishing.All was going well until one of the islands famous freak waves came in and swept all their kit out to sea.It was a long time before they heard the end of that.

THE JOURNEY HOME

All too quickly our week was over and we had to go back to Wideawake to await the arrival of the Heavy Lift Belfast that the RAF had hired for us. It arrived late so we were now going to have to work into the night to load up the Tornado and all its removed parts.

The orignal plan was for us to load up the Belfast and then catch the next Tristar back to the UK.Unfortunatly the Tristar that we were supposed to be catching had made an emergency landing at Rio de Janiro on its way up from the Falklands.It was going to be a few days before it was repaired so the decision was made to fly half of us back in the Belfast,and the other half would stay on in Ascension and catch the Tristar once it had arrived.

We worked through most of the night to get the Tornado loaded on the Belfast and then went back to Travellers Hill for a sleep. In the morning we said goodbye to the half of the team who were staying and boarded the Belfast.The Belfast was carrying a lot of weight and we had to use almost the entire lengh of the runway to get airbourne. Eventually we were on our way home and we got comfortable for the long journey ahead.

Everything was going okay,or so we thought.About two hours into the flight one of the engines on the Belfast decided it had had enough of life and was going to commit suicide.The engine temp guages in the cockpit started to rise and the air engineer went back to look out the window to make sure all was well.While he was gone one of the propulsion technicians we had taken with us sat in the air engineers seat and noticed one of the guages was almost off the scale.He told the pilot whose responce was "oh shit,"and he immediatly shut down the right hand outboard engine.

The pilot informed us he was going to have to turn back to Ascension and make an emergency landing.So we found ourselves in Ascension being persude down the runway by fire engines. We had another couple of days on the beach before catching the Tristar back to the UK with the rest of the team. The Belfast was repaired in Ascension and followed on a few days later.Amazingly it had more engine problems and had to make an emergency landing at Cardiff airport South Wales.