An airport to sustain lives

St. Helena, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, is a small tropical island island of volcanic origin, measuring 17 x 10 kilometres (11 x 6 miles) and is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, even if the island is almost 7,000 kilometres (4,670 miles) away. It is one of the most remote places on earth. The closest landmass is Africa, roughly 2,000 kilometres (1,333 miles) away from the island. Cargo, mail and equipment transportation limitations make life for the residents of St. Helena difficult and when the aging British ship, the RMS St Helena, broke down in 1999, the 4,000 residents of St. Helena were stranded with no means of coming or going and with no delivery of vital supplies because this ship was the island's only transportation to the mainland. It was decided to finally construct a green field airport, an airport built from scratch on an undeveloped site, on St. Helena and replace the ship as the main access provider to the island. After many years of negotiations and planning, the project commenced in 2012 with a budget of roughly £ 240 million (398 million USD, 300 million Euro), scheduled to be completed in 2016.

“没有一个现代的机场,很少有chance of economically competing with anything,” says Nigel Kirby, Project Manager at the British Department for International Development. This international airport represents a historic milestone for St. Helena and will offer the island a chance to create economic opportunity by developing tourism and jobs, perhaps eventually leading to the island’s economic self-sustainability. The project of building this airport is one of the largest being undertaken in the southern hemisphere and was given to the South African construction group, Basil Read.

该建筑工地位于该岛的东部，靠近繁荣的湾，是由于该岛的岩石地形和环境问题而真正受到质疑的少数地区之一。干肠道是将成为未来机场跑道的一部分的峡谷的名称。This gorge had to be drilled, blasted and filled with 8 million cubic metres (8 million cubic yards) of blasted rock for a depth of over 100 metres (328 feet) in order to become part of the airport’s 2,000 metre (6,562 feet) runway. After the gorge was filled, it had to sit for at least six months to avoid settlement problems and cracks in the runway, after which paving could begin.

但是首先，资源和设备必须运到岛上。Basil Read contracted the NP Glory 4, a massive cargo vessel to transport amongst other things, a slipform paver equipped with Leica Geosystems PaveSmart 3D machine control, which was also used with Wirtgen Group’s paving & milling equipment, Leica Viva TS15 total stations and 45,000 m³ (58,860 yd³) of dune sand from Namibia, which was needed to pave the runway. To mix the concrete, more than five million kilograms of sand was needed and this was shipped in plastic bags weighing 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) each.

Before the ship set off from Namibia, both the Leica Geosystems specialist and Wirtgen technician worked together on a pre-delivery inspection. With the ship’s journey taking five days and only traveling once a month, all equipment had to work, even if an extra set of all equipment was also on-site.

The paving width of the paver is 2.8 metres (9.2 feet) and was designed to match the capacity of the concrete batching plant, which could, at peak operation times, run two shifts six days a week. The teams were able to keep up with concrete production using Leica Geosystems PaveSmart 3D machine control and Leica Viva TS15 total stations. Together, they achieved an optimised yield of concrete by means of measuring with the total stations to precisely track the paver’s position and elevation and sending any tracking corrections back to the PaveSmart 3D machine control, which calculated and corrected the paver’s positions. This helped simplify the logistics of the paving immensely.

铺路工作始于围裙，未使用的飞机的停车区，以及150 x 75米（492 x 246英尺）的混凝土板，乘客将登机，飞机将加油。此外，靠近该区域将是专门针对私人企业喷气机的特殊表面。

使用Leica Pavesmart 3D软件，以及TS15的总站，还节省了用字符串储备的赌注，并消除了相关的手动劳动和设置所bob apple需的费用。摊铺机，混凝土卡车和现场车辆不再需要围绕琴弦开车并减少其工作流程。同样，当工作人员在弱光条件下工作时，无绳索的工作地点到目前为止更安全，而且随时都没有意外重新定位指导字符串。

The unique desert ecosystem of Prosperous Bay also profited by the use the Leica PaveSmart 3D machine control. The machine control system minimised vehicle movement on-site and also reduced trips to transport materials. This kept the footprint of the airport project as compact as possible.

Basil Read is also well into completing the airport’s terminal building, air traffic control tower, fire facility and fuel storages, all part of a modern airport’s infrastructure and the first international flight should land on the completed runway by February, 2016. Basil Read, together with Lanseria, will also continue to maintain the airport for an additional ten years.

罗勒除了在Leica Geosystems产品和解决方案的帮助下，除了建立与现代世界的链接，提供现代运输和提供必要物资的快速和可靠手段外，还带来了急需的就业机会bob综合app下载经济未来，为圣海伦娜人口提供更好的生活水平。

由弗雷德里克·鲁德奎斯特（Fredrik Rudqvist）撰写