Southern Charter establishes Ascension Island Field Office

Southern Charter has established a new field office on Ascension Island to support the company's growing South Atlantic operations.

Moana Roa arrives at the Georgetown Pier

Moana Roa at the pier in Virtual Sailor:NG......

.... and ashore in ARMA3

What began as a visit to the island became a reconnaissance mission. We travelled by road and by sea, explored the settlement and port facilities, and eventually found a suitable property: a large house offering enough room for a small operations office and temporary crew accommodation, together with an open-sided shelter nearby that could serve as a secure working yard.

Exploring East of Georgetown

Pushing into the higher ground

Farmland on the Western slopes of Green Mountain

Exploring by boat towards North Point

From there, things escalated in the usual Southern Charter fashion.

Unloading supplies, and our mobile logistics office

Equipment and supplies were brought ashore, vehicles positioned, containers moved into the yard, and the house fitted out with office space downstairs and basic crew accommodation upstairs. By nightfall, the lights were on and the Southern Charter Ascension Island Field Office was operational.

The new improvised operations room

Across the road is our covered logistics yard

The facility isn't intended to become a major base. It's something much more useful: a small, practical SCX presence in the middle of the South Atlantic. A place for crews to stage through, equipment to be stored, voyages and flights to be supported, and future operations to begin.

With the job complete, Moana Roa can continue her voyage, leaving the field office—and a small Southern Charter team—behind.

Lights on, open for business

Burning the midnight oil in the freight yard

A different kind of simulator

This operation also marks another step in the way we use ARMA 3.

For Southern Charter, ARMA isn't primarily about combat. Its enormous environments, vehicles, boats, buildings and mission-editing capability make it an extraordinarily good platform for ground operations and exploration.

It lets us do things that don't naturally fit inside a flight or maritime simulator: drive out from an airport, survey an unfamiliar island, inspect possible operating locations, move equipment, establish a temporary base, travel between facilities, or simply explore somewhere on foot.

The important part isn't which simulator an object came from, or which platforms happen to represent the same location.

It's the mission.

A Southern Charter operation might start with an aircraft arriving at an island, continue with a vehicle carrying the crew into town, involve a boat surveying the coast, and finish with a field office being established for whatever comes next.

ARMA 3 gives us another environment in which that story can continue.

And now, on a rather remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic, there's a light above a Southern Charter sign.

The Ascension Island Field Office is open for business.

Moana Roa sails off for her next adventure