Page 86 - Demo

86The crowded facilities on Ascension Island. While Widewake was moreprimitive than most of the airfields that they customarily frequented, theVictor fraternity%u2019s extensive experience of operating away from basestood them in good stead.forward holdings of spares and munitions together with extensive in siturepair and recovery facilities. On the face of it, we were not wellprepared for expeditionary warfare %u2013 there were certainly no relevant,detailed contingency plans and few resources for deployed operations.Much has also been made, quite properly, of the immense distancesinvolved in mounting effective air operations during the FalklandsCampaign and the challenge of out-of-area operations. And yet, if we arehonest, the RAF was not totally unprepared for what transpired.If I may take as an example (with which I was personally familiar asNo 57 Sqn%u2019s JEngO and Unit Mobility Officer in the late %u201870s), theVictor tanker force %u2013 so crucial to exercising air power over thethousands of square miles of the South Atlantic %u2013 was practised andconfident in its ability to sustain deployed operations. This confidencewas built on the back of regular peacetime exercises. The engineeringproblems faced in operating from Ascension Island were not totallydissimilar from the demands of routine deployments to North Americaand the Mediterranean in support of various Flags and Trails, as well asthe short-notice Tansor commitment (although, admittedly, these neverincluded the effects of volcanic ash or the absence of a parallel taxiway).