MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands, BFSAI and MPA capabilities in the challenging winter conditions

An RAF transport parked at MPA in a typical South Atlantic winter weather night

Whilst personnel in the UK are enduring yet another heatwave in 2025, Royal Air Force Service Personnel on the other side of the world are experiencing quite the opposite!

Within the British Forces South Atlantic Islands, Mount Pleasant Airfield (MPA) is exposed to some dramatic and challenging South Atlantic winter conditions at this time of year. This climate makes operational management of the airfield evermore critical.

1312 Flight (Flt), within 905 Expeditionary Air Wing (EAW), are responsible for maintaining and clearing the aircraft at MPA. Chief Technician (CT) Warren Burns provided an invaluable insight into his Falklands deployment on 1312 Flt over this period last year.

Photo: BFSAI

 

“Our main effort is to deliver Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) Air to Air Refueling. We also support search and rescue missions, maritime radar reconnaissance and medical evacuations. We are on call 24/7”, explains CT Burns.

“Weather in the Falklands at this time of the year is very dramatic. Climate can change rapidly, sometimes only ten minutes apart. You can get temperatures down to -4 degrees but with the wind chill it feels like -15 degrees.

‘This means that when you are operating in a cold environment, you can be working for a good few hours per aircraft. For example, there are certain meter requirements for snow to be away from the aircraft.

“So, it is important to manage and prevent cold injuries within the team, but you still have to be timely in completing the task at hand. Time management and resource management becomes ever more critical. It can only take one piece of equipment to fail and that could affect the delivery.

“In effect you have hold-over times when it comes to de-icing the aircraft. If it snows within this time period, we have to re-attack. It requires team management and collaboration with several sections. In this circumstance, you have to work with the Captain, Air Traffic Control and MET to determine a new window for spraying the de-icer again. The knock-on effect for this weather is that time windows get smaller.

And how is the operative in Falklands’ summer? “The main difference is in the training my team require. Demands are higher and the team has to be a lot more reactive.

“The Airfield Support Mechanical Transport (ASMT) team are one of the largest contributors to air operations especially in winter conditions. The ASMT team provides the snow clearance vehicles, quality assurance and product testing as well as co-ordination with the catering, aero-medical and fuel elements.”

Cpl Martin from ASMT, MPA, added the team on 1312 Flt have to be ‘'highly reactive and prioritize tasks depending on the 905 Expeditionary Air Wing agenda. Equally, the snow and ice engineers are always on call to fix and repair vehicles in a timely manner. They deal with everything airside relate (RAF)