Brighton City Airport occupies 214 acres of land on the west side of the River
Adur and is sandwiched between the A27 and A259. It is the second busiest
licensed general aviation airport in the United Kingdom and was recently in the
headlines following the tragic air accident at the RAFA Airshow on 22nd August 2015. It's owned by ADR Candelon Limited and as
mentioned in a previous post, the airport’s airside activities are managed by
Brighton City Airport Limited. For the
last few years, the airport has operated at a profit and its main income
streams include fuel and landing fees.
This summer, Paul Smith, Brighton City Airport Limited’s
Ground Operations Manager and Senior Airport Fire Officer, took me on a tour
for lifeon-shorehambeach.
“I began working at
the airport in 2000 as a firefighter. Prior to and while working at the
Aerodrome, I was a retained firefighter in the local authority fire service
(1985-2010) and was the Station Manager at Henfield. Plus I’d been an Engineer
and Mechanic for various companies.
I’m one of those guys who gets into
everything, so when I started at the airport I steadily got more and more
involved. I became the Senior Airport Fire Officer (SAFO), and within a short
time also the Ground Operations Manager. I now manage a team of 12 men and am
one of the four responsible for managing the airport.
My main role is to
make sure that the fuel, fire, aerodrome operation and operational area is
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), compliant and meets the required regulations. I
have paperwork coming out of my ears, but I’m a procedure monster so I thrive
on it. I work all over the airport but my desk is in the terminal building.
The Aerodrome is an
old civil and military airport, so we’ve got a typical layout of three runways in
a triangular format. It’s a tried and tested arrangement that means that pilots
can fly into wind regardless of its direction. We operate a simple one-way
system for the aircraft so the Controllers can make full use of the runways
while planes queue up to take off. On
peak days, we are very, very busy. In fact, for periods of the year, we are
busier than lots of the larger regional airports. When it’s particularly
lively, we’ll have two controllers and an assistant controller on duty in the
VCR (visual control room).
We always have to ask
permission to visit the control tower because we’ll get in their way if they’re fully occupied.
Martin, one of the air traffic controllers at Brighton City Airport
Everything you can
see over Martin’s shoulder falls under the jurisdiction of the air traffic controllers.
Theirs is an intense
job because they have to ensure that everything is safe so their eyes and ears
are everywhere. The CAA regulate their hours, so after 2.5 hours they
have to handover to another controller, take a break and chill out.
The CAA govern everything we do from how emergencies should be dealt with to the length of the
grass, so we have a checklist on what has to be done in a given situation and
for every occurrence. It’s all very regimented. Controllers go on annual
training sessions for Routine Occurrences and Emergencies and the Unit Training
Officer will regularly turn up unannounced, give them 10 seconds to read a
scenario and observe how they respond.
When an emergency is
declared, the controller will hit a big red button on his console and the
alarms and bells will go off around the Aerodrome to alert the fire crew. The
airport fire crew will call up, having responded to the alarms within 15-20
seconds, to find out what type of emergency it is. They will report to
strategic locations pre designated as part of the emergency plan and be in the
correct response position should anything happen. The large majority of their
call outs are precautionary, it’s just an assurance for the Aerodrome users and
the pilot.
When the fire crew
are on a job there will be no or limited fire cover available to other
aircraft. Under these circumstances, the controller will advise the pilots
accordingly and they have to decide if they wish to divert to another airfield.
The bigger aircraft cannot land without fire cover so they have no choice but
to divert.
A variety of aircraft
types operate in to and out of the Aerodrome and some of our resident aircraft
are kept in the airport’s maintenance hanger.
Maintenance hanger at Brighton City Airport.
My team of eight firefighters, two maintenance men and three security guards, come into their own in
this hanger, the adjacent fire station and on the Aerodrome.
The firefighters’
primary role is to deal with the airport’s accidents and incidents and the three
security guards with airside security, but we all pitch in to help with the
maintenance. We re-line runways, make marker and information boards in our
workshop, cut the 214 acres of grass, re-lay concrete, re-fuel aircraft and
repair and replace the runway and taxiway lights. We scare off bird or wildlife
that could endanger aircraft and collect the landing fees. Every job is covered
by a procedure and everyone’s additional responsibilities are laid out, written
down, signaturised and checked. We’re always busy but when the gong goes, it’s
“Squadron scramble!” and the firefighters drop everything and sprint off to
man the fire trucks.
Pete
and Darren from Brighton City Airport’s fire team
They have three
minutes from the time they hear the alarm to get to the fire and start applying
media, (water or foam). Two of them will go in the first truck and a third and
(when available) a fourth, will proceed if needed. When they arrive, they take
control of the incident because they are expert in dealing with aviation
related accidents. When the local authority fire service turn up, they will
either allow our firefighters to retain control or take over if it’s a serious
fire. If it’s a small incident, we’ll remain in charge and deal with it fully
as we are qualified aviation firefighters.
Without our fire service, the airport would not have an Aerodrome licence and without an
Aerodrome licence, its future as a viable commercial airport would be in
serious jeopardy.
The airport fire service has two fire trucks
and two Watches, Red and Blue. The trucks are much smaller than the standard
fire engine you see on the streets and only carry equipment necessary to deal
with a fire on a private jet, like a Cessna Citation. The fire trucks have
specialist foam monitors on the front and can start producing media as soon as
the engine starts. This means that the firefighters can apply water or foam
the moment they get near the fire, even if they are travelling at 70 mph.
Unless they are trying to save life, they can tackle the fire from inside the
cab so they don’t have to put themselves at risk from heat, fire or fumes.
Some people think
that Brighton City Airport fire service is part of West Sussex fire service.
It’s not. Although our firefighters are either former RAF or part-time local authority firefighters and our training is similar, the airport fire service
is owned and operated by Brighton City Airport Limited. It complies with CAA procedures not
that of the local authority. We do though obviously have a great working
relationship with the local authority blue light services.
We have other
vehicles to fulfil our remaining functions and one of these is the checker.
Brighton City Airport’s checker
We use the checker to
monitor the airfield. The moment we set foot in it we fall under the authority
of the air traffic controllers and have to tell them exactly where we want to
go, what we want to do and why we’re doing it. We can only drive off when we
have their permission. When we’re on the move, we have to do precisely what
they tell us because it’s a busy place and aircraft always have priority.
No one is allowed
airside without prior consent, so if someone is spotted wandering around, one
of us will jump into the truck, bring them in, find out what they were doing,
under whose authority, and ask other pertinent questions. Then they get a
ticking off. We are in a position of authority but we always try to remain friendly
but that’s a very difficult balance to strike at times.
Birds are generally
more of a problem than intruders because of the danger of bird strikes, so the checker is equipped with a state of the art bird scarer which we’ll use to
deter them from getting too close to the runways.
Runway 02
There is a Runway and
Safety Area at the end of each of the three runways. It’s an over-run area that
an aircraft can use to come to a stop and turn around if something goes wrong
during the take-off or landing. The ground there needs to be quite firm so we’ll
keep these areas clear, graded and stabilized.
Our fire training
ground is near the gunnery. There’s an old aircraft fuselage there and with my
SAFO hat on, I’ll test our procedures by setting a small fire in it without
warning and tell the guys that there’s been a plane crash. Exercises like this
supplement their annual hot fire and breathing apparatus training at
Southampton Airport and is great at keeping them and ATC on their toes.
Brighton
City Airport terminal building
I work long hours but
I absolutely love working at the airport. There are about 70 staff within our group of companies
including FTA-Global, Brighton City Airport Limited and Apollo Aviation Maintenance and it’s like a little township. The place gets into
your bones and people tend to stay on until they retire. Yes, the operators can
fall out with each other and us, but we all love the aircraft and the
environment in which we work. We feel very protective towards it so if anyone
wants to change it, they’ll have to get through us first.”
The tour took place before the 22nd August and I
would like to dedicate this blog to Red Watch and all the staff at Brighton
City Airport Limited. My thanks go to Paul Smith, in particular, for taking me on
a fascinating tour and treating me to a cup of tea and a cake.
Thanks for dropping by and in a fortnight’s time I’ll be
back with a virtual tour of Shoreham’s RNLI Station.
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