Outing & Events

Newquay Cornwall Airport

A ‘Behind the Scenes’ visit - Wednesday, June 9th 2010

Cornwall Council took over the management of Newquay Cornwall Airport just before Christmas, 2008, following the departure of RAF service personnel from RAF St Mawgan after many years of the station being an active air station, initially for Coastal Command, later to become Strike Command.  To meet the requirements of the Civil Aviation Authority took Cornwall Council well over a year in planning and construction of new facilities, including building a new control tower, fire station and radar scanner, in addition to substantial modifications to the runway and taxiways to meet civilian standards.  Newquay Cornwall Airport now has a newly re-surfaced runway of some 2,745 metres and is rated to handle all sizes of airliners, up to the new Airbus A380 if necessary.

We were welcomed by Graham Simpson, Fire Services Manager, who gave us a PowerPoint presentation, explaining the conversion programme addressed by the council to achieve one of the most modern airports in the UK, with a route network of 19 destinations, operated by eight airlines.  We then moved by bus to the fire training area, where a demonstration was given of fire control around their 'iron bird' representing an Airbus A319 aircraft, which was set afire and the cabin was filled with smoke.  The fire teams arrived in their new state of the art fire appliances, using water and foam to douce the flames and then made entry to the cabin to clear smoke.  All very dramatic and re-assuring if ever one was caught in such a scenario!

              

'Shep' talks to the group about Air Traffic Control

Transported by coach, we moved then to the Air Traffic Control tower, where we were met by Kevin Shephard, ATC Manager ('Shep' to his friends), who showed a brief PowerPoint presentation, detailing some of the systems and equipment installed following departure of the RAF.    We split into two groups, firstly to view the Radar Control Room, where the controllers are in constant radio communication with all local air traffic across the south west, monitoring their positioning and separation, and then to visit the more confined space in the visual control room, on top of the building where it was explained they handled the immediate arrival and departure routines of all aircraft movements, together with a large number of ground vehicles that have to move around on the airport.   

A tour of the airfield was then undertaken by bus, where Graham Simpson pointed  some of the airfield equipment and facilities, including the operating base for our Cornwall Air Ambulance before returning to the appliance bay (Fire Station Garage to you!), where the group enjoyed some refreshments and an opportunity to examine the fire engines close up!  All in all, a very interesting few hours! 

Duncan Tribute  

Falmouth Coastguard 
Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre

Thursday, June 10th, 11.00am


On June 10th. a party of our members visited the Coastguard station at Pendennis Point, Falmouth. We started with a short film about the Coastguard service, and then James Instance talked to us about the Falmouth station. He explained that Falmouth is responsible for emergencies on the Cornish coastline and in the sea around Cornwall (and also in a large area of sea stretching out to mid Atlantic). 

 

In addition to that Falmouth has a special responsibility for co-ordination of rescues of British ships and seamen throughout the world. He explained that if a British yacht were in trouble in the South China Sea, someone on board could text Grandma in this country, who could then ring her local coastguards, who would ask Falmouth to arrange a rescue by contacting local countries or nearby ships.

We were then allowed to wander round, talk to the staff and inspect the many computers that they were using. The staff work two twelve hour daytime shifts each week and two twelve hour night shifts as well.  Emma, who talked to our group, said that she carried a pager when she was off duty at home in St. Agnes, and was sometimes called out to do voluntary work with the inshore lifeboat there.  Indeed, the coastguard service depends very much on volunteers around the county who help out when there is an emergency.

We enjoyed this visit very much and were impressed by the skills and dedication of the highly trained staff whom we met.

Tony Herring

 

 

 Tremough University Campus

 

A group of our members went on a visit to the Combined Universities in Cornwall campus at Tremough on July 22nd. We were joined by some friends from Kerrier North U3A. We started with tea and pastries in the Board Room. Viv Minton, the Conference and Events Manager, gave us a talk about the University, explaining that the Media Studies side was run by the Falmouth College  of Arts whilst the degree courses on the Science side were overseen by Exeter. 

We then split into three groups and were taken round various departments. Alan Barnes showed us the very expensive cameras and other equipment used to teach the students how to run television interviews. 

Professor Tom Tregenza showed us round the BioSciences department. He showed us his colonies of Drosophila fruit flies. Fruit flies bred under monogamous conditions and fruit flies from polygamous colonies have different sexual characteristics and there are associated changes in their DNA sequences. He said that Tremough is one of the leading  centres in the world in this type of research. Later we went to the Geology Department and Peter Frost talked about the Camborne School of Mines rock collection. We finished up having more tea in their rather luxurious canteen. 

We have been to Tremough before, but this was by far the most interesting visit and we are grateful to the University authorities for organising the visit and for the hospitality.

 

Tony Herring