I think this is one of the few things as late that makes me feel genuinely proud to be British, because, beneath the hostility that feels so rife across our country recently, we’ve so many good people making things like this happen. Bravo.
This is only happening in order to protect the UK states' control over the territory.
Altruism isn't the priority - just the pitch. The real priority is to ensure Tristan Da Cunha remains property of the UK - which, if the colony were to fail, would be immediately endangered. This is why the imperial military is involved, not civilian organizations - the military target is to ensure the island remains the property of the UK.
One thing I often ask myself in these situations:
What do the inhabitants on these islands actually do?
There are 259 of them in this case.
Are they self-sustaining? How do they pay for stuff the want to import? Do they live off the cruise ships they supply? And do people generally stay there or do young people generally move to mainland?
Edit: For economy, it looks like they live off exporting langustas.
This recent article[1] answers a lot of these questions with great photos too. I would go so far to say it’s the most authoritative piece to date. Previously [2].
I'm no expert but that looks like an impressive feat of skill, coming blind through the clouds and picking out a relatively small patch to land on. Remember also it is late autumn there, pretty windy (according to TFA) and the wind would probably be doing weird things off the sea around those cliffs. All in all, very cool.
I think this was also a “look what we can do at short notice” kind of exercise. Just in case a country was thinking of maybe trying to take over another set of islands in the south Atlantic
yes, definitely reminds the famous bombing raid on Falklands.
The distance of 2700 km a typical small ship - like say this Costa Guard cutter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend-class_cutter and sure South Africa do have ships like this - would have made in 2-3 days. No risk and probably much cheaper compare to the described paratrooping.
Though i do think that the paratrooping was nice, just to show that as a civilization we can.
On the other side i think it also shows our civilization failure to develop long range VTOL - say like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piasecki_16H_Pathfinder - helicopters with pusher have been reaching 2000 km range, and additional fuel tanks would have gotten such one to 3000km, yet we just don't have such helicopters (or other long range VTOLs) around.
Were the ICU nurse and Doctor trained for the tandem jump previously - I've not seen that said in any of the stories published. Or did they just find a random ICU nurse and Doctor who was up for it?
On windswept shores where oceans foam,
Far from the bustle and noise of home,
The island watched the grey skies part,
With hope returning to every heart.
Across the vastness the RAF flew through,
With medicine, medics, and military too,
Parachuting in with skill and courage on our shore,
The impossible was accomplished to the core.
Tristan da Cunha, proud and small,
A community who always stand together through it all,
Neighbours helping each other, such an amazing sight,
Hoping everything done before the loss of daylight.
It is not 'very nice'; it's often generic and lacking in any insight or striking imagery, the meter is ragged and inconsistent while the rhymes are often padding or outright slant (through/too, shore/core?). But I will grant it this: despite the AABB quatrain meter making it look exactly like AI slop, the flaws and errors show that it's probably genuinely amateur-written (as does a '100% human' rating in Pangram).
Sweet ... I saw the original video just the other day. The fact that they just dropped in from 7K feet, then proceeded to do medical stuff is the very definition of "bad ass".
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 27.9 ms ] threadAltruism isn't the priority - just the pitch. The real priority is to ensure Tristan Da Cunha remains property of the UK - which, if the colony were to fail, would be immediately endangered. This is why the imperial military is involved, not civilian organizations - the military target is to ensure the island remains the property of the UK.
My god there actually is an island called Inaccessible Island! That's fantastic.
One thing I often ask myself in these situations: What do the inhabitants on these islands actually do?
There are 259 of them in this case.
Are they self-sustaining? How do they pay for stuff the want to import? Do they live off the cruise ships they supply? And do people generally stay there or do young people generally move to mainland?
Edit: For economy, it looks like they live off exporting langustas.
[1] https://apps.npr.org/life-on-tristan-da-cunha/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47640431
The distance of 2700 km a typical small ship - like say this Costa Guard cutter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend-class_cutter and sure South Africa do have ships like this - would have made in 2-3 days. No risk and probably much cheaper compare to the described paratrooping.
Though i do think that the paratrooping was nice, just to show that as a civilization we can.
On the other side i think it also shows our civilization failure to develop long range VTOL - say like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piasecki_16H_Pathfinder - helicopters with pusher have been reaching 2000 km range, and additional fuel tanks would have gotten such one to 3000km, yet we just don't have such helicopters (or other long range VTOLs) around.