A number of Voyager tanker aircraft had to be diverted to Glasgow Prestwick Airport due to the extreme heat at their home base of RAF Brize Norton.

UPDATE: Voyager aircraft are also operating out of London Stansted Airport.

A Royal Air Force statement read:

“During this period of extreme temperature flight safety remains the RAF’s top priority, so aircraft are using alternative airfields in line with a long-established plan. This means there is no impact on RAF operations.”

What happened?

The RAF earlier halted flights in and out of its biggest airbase after the runway reportedly “melted” on a day of extremely hot weather.

A source told me however that the runway hasn’t melted:

“Hi George, I just wanted to offer a little correction as there appears to be some misinformation. The runway itself has not ‘melted’ as is being reported (as far as all of us on station have been told) rather, the decision to disperse assets of the AMF appears to be an attempt to avoid a repeat incident of what happened to ZZ336 last year.”

What happened last year?

RAF Brize Norton’s runway was closed while repairs necessitated by “recent extreme hot weather” were carried out. It came after a Royal Air Force Voyager’s (aircraft ZZ336) wheel was damaged when its tyre picked up melted tar from the Oxfordshire station’s runway.

RAF Brize Norton is the largest station in the RAF with about 5,800 personnel, 1,200 contractors and 300 civilian staff.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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42 COMMENTS

    • Then the MOD got the boys from the blackstuff in who crunched up there polos and sprinkled them in the surface to add the white fleck.

    • It seems, on the face of it, a poor show. Hope Waddington and Marham’s new runways and infrastructure are holding up.

      I too thought concrete was used on military airfields.

          • Possibly.

            BN only has one runway.

            If it is the runway, Swanwick Mil will know, as I think Brize is a Military Emergency Diversion Airfield.

          • BN surely needs a second runway to cope with variety of wind direction and to add redundancy.

          • Imagine the costs! And nowhere to put it unless existing infrastructure is bulldozed.
            Everything in the UK costs so much. Marham got 800 million put into it I recall, that is around 3 T31s. Though that work was for a lot more than a runway.

            I’d be curious checking to see what RAF stations have second runways in use. There won’t be many.

          • They should have put a 2nd runway in, in 1935 when they built the place, or at least in 2011 when Lyneham closed and Brize became the sole air hub for AT.

          • Most RAF airfields built in the 30s and 40s with concrete runways were built with 3, as planes then were more susceptible to wind on take off and landing. In most cases one of these, usually on an east/west alignment was extended for jet ops and the others effectively went out of use.

          • Thanks David. A second runway should have been retained if it had 2 or 3 from the 1935 build – for redundancy. The loss of Lyneham should have brought this into focus.
            What was behind the switch from concrete to tarmac?

          • Yes it is and, yes it is…

            The issue of a second runway was raised when Brize was shut down from flight operations a few years back and the fleet operated out of Fairford.
            We were told back then a second runway was unneeded to to;

            1. Local planning permissions, Brize is bordered on 3 sides by NIMBYs.
            2. Cost
            3. the runway at Brize is long enough to allow aircraft to get airborne and disperse when needed, using only a part (1/3) runway.

            We were also told the new surface and extra weight allowance would see the base through to at least 2050!!

          • Interesting points Darren. Having studied the site before on GE I can see the constraints. I assume those NW/NE taxiways from the main runway were once runways themselves?

          • We need a concrete answer here…
            Seriously though, RAF airfields having to be closed down because of melting tarmac is a serious situation!

      • You would have presumed that with the heat in mind, the base commander would have soursed a number of water tankers with sprinkers fitted on them and then sent them up and down the runway during the hot period watering the runway, would have been a lot cheaper than closing down the Airbase and repairing the runway. Also armed with such knowledge whats to now prevent a hostile force (Eco loons, Terrorists or even another nation) from striking the runway in future with a naplam type weapon designed to ignite and burn tarmac.

        • Fit sprinkler system along either side of runway/taxiways and aprons can also claim it can be used for NBC decom 🙂

        • Agreed. Should have had a contingency plan or in modern parlkance – a Business Continuity Plan/Disaster Recovery Plan.
          I had one at Colchester Garrison.

          • And in case of emergency probably do. However it would be a massive waste of water when you can simply move the aircraft for a few days…

  2. Hard to believe that RAF operations are unaffected merely by the relocation of 3 tankers to Prestwick. What about the airtroopers (pax and cargo)? I recall the Falklands airbridge was served by 1 or 2 flights per week.

    As well as a nearly-melting runway, a hangar roof partly blew off a few weeks ago, Brize needs to look at its climate resilience measures.

    • Hanger roof was in fact the photovoltaic panels attached to the roof. so not the main roof structure. and how is Tarmac constructed 2 key elements Stone and tar heated to allow easy laying.

      • Thanks Johan. BZZ still needs to look at its climate resilience measures. Concrete is quite easy to lay too.

        • Concrete is less easy to repair though. It is also less grippy. So in the past Tarmac made sense. However we need to rethink a lot of things with climate change accelerating. We however should have been thinking of these things and doing something about them back when we knew climate change was a reality back in the 70s…

  5. So another Type 45?
    I suppose those strange RAF tankers cannot ever go to Italy, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia etc…their runaways also melt…

    • Need to define MELT its not ice cream, but if you drive over it in a large heavy item. it will damage the surface. much like the motorway and the inside land and the truck tramlines.

    • They use different materials in those places. For good reason, just like we used the material we use for good reason. This is not another Type45 this is a new reality that we need to get used to, plan for and make policies to combat. Melting Runways are a minor annoyance compared to the other changes that we will see.

    • Dirt roads. Seriously though roads are made differently to cope with different situations. So hot country roads may be ok in heat but rubbish in cold and wet conditions. More stones, less grip in wet I think.
      I’m not a tar man so don’t know exactly about these things.

    • I was around when Phoenix had its hottest ever high temperature of 122F (50C) on June 26, 1990. As I recall, Phoenix Sky Harbor never shut down and operated continuously. Some older airliners could not depart until evening when the temperature cooled back down below 120F. The older aircraft could not depart because their performance charts only went up to 120F for ambient air temp. They couldn’t complete performance calculations so they couldn’t go.

  7. All these jets using Prestwick may make selling it a bit easier. I think it’s still Scottish government arms length owned. One of the best airports in Europe for weather.

  10. Any other fortnight they would have relocated ops to RAF Fairford just down the road and nobody would have batted a eyelid.

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