Island Airstrips

Seen this site about Airstrips on small Islands in the Pacific Ocean and other worldwide locations

www.airfields-freeman.com...

Wonder if some are still used today. Could they be used for Black Projects or Emergency Runways?

What kind of people would live there?

[edit on 27-1-2006 by Browno]

Hey Browno,
I can't remember who it was originally, but when someone first proposed the idea that the REAL black projects could be based out on these remote airstrips and atolls, it just hit me. It makes perfect sense.
There is pretty much no more isolated places in the world than those remote bases, and realistically, "they" could be doing anything there. Think about the "pros" if you will:
1. Remoteness - not even a passerby every month or so, and even if someone was inbound, they would be spotted far, far in advance.
2. Excuses for "off-limits" - many used to be used for nuclear and chemical weapons testing. That's a pretty good reason to tell people to stay away.
3. Climate - only cause someone seems convinced that secret stuff is being tested down in Antarctica, which is cold, stormy, dangerous, unpredictable... etc. And I'm sure the staff would prefer it there!

Very interesting link you posted. Anything make you a little suspicious?

Despite the extraordinary security on the island & unknown to most travelers heading to Hawaii, Johnston was the designated alternative landing site for long-range twin-engine aircraft.
Greg Zieber recalled, "I lived & worked on Johnston Island for 6.5 years, 1994 to mid 2000. There were several times that the runway was used for emergency landings. Small civil aviation type aircraft (Cessna for example), large commercial jet aircraft including a Quantas [sp!] 747, and various military aircraft also used the airfield for bona fide declared emergencies.

Makes sense to me... that's a whole lot of water underneath you when you're in trouble. However they've closed it!

The US Army, which operated the chemical weapons destruction facility, said in 2001 that they planned to begin to decommissioning the runway in 2002. That would make it fail to qualify under the "extended-range twin-engine operations" (ETOPS) rules which apply to twin engine airliners such as the 737, 757, 767, 777, MD80/90, A300/310, A319/320/321, and A330.

Seems a bit odd to me... they cleaned up all the chemical weapons AND closed the runway? So now the atoll is safer than ever, they shut the runway (which would only be used in real emergencies anyway).

Great find! The Pacific war is really fascinating for me. I'm hopefully going to go hiking and scuba diving over WW2 wrecks in North-Eastern Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the near future.

According to the link, these are old air strips from the second world war. who knows if they are still used. If they are, it might only be for emergencies. If they are from World War II it is unlikey that they are home to anything really secret, as they are probably well mapped by foreign military intelligence units by now.

Tim

I don't think this is very feasible. To make those black projects, you first need big research facilities as well as factories to produce these planes. Also, testing of individual parts such as engines, airframes (using air tunnels), etc requires more space. Furthermore, many tests require ground structures such as radar stations, etc, to test for radar signature, for example. Finally, for weapons testing, there need to be mock ground targets.

The Island is called Johnson Atoll/ Johnson Island. I was an Military Policeman in the Army and one of my buddies was assigned on Johnson Island as part of the security force. All staff had to have a gas mask on their person and Auto Injectors in case of exposure. The chemicals were burned in a incinarator.

Jason

NTS would be extremely well monitored by foreign militaries as well, but we know testing still occurs there.

There are test sites out there, including the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defence Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, which has been used very recently for the Son of Star Wars program. I'd say they'd have to have some pretty good radar tracking stations out there for that program alone, or if not they brought in some ships to do it for them.
Sure, they wouldn't have whole "black" factories and design centres there, but it would defenitely be a good place for early testing of prototypes.

Noticed that link is down, if it doesn't work here is the Wikipedia entry for it.

Originally posted by 4for4
NTS would be extremely well monitored by foreign militaries as well,
but we know testing still occurs there...

What kind of testing occurrs at NTS?


Sarge

Well that was a bit of a mistake, I meant Groom Lake to be more exact.

The problem with keeping black projects on these tiny little atols is the fact that most of them are like 3 feet tall, literally. IIRC Johnston Island is 3 1/2 feet above sea level at its highest point. You get a good storm coming and have to evac, you're going to be risking exposure of these black projects.

The reason they decomissioned Johnston was simple. After they finished destroying the chemical weapons, the Army left, because there was no reason for them to be there anymore. No one else has the money, or wants to spend the money to maintain the runway.

Yeah, deep inside I know you're all right, I must have played too much FarCry.