Discovery at Radlett

[ATTACH=CONFIG]215719[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]215717[/ATTACH]OK, thanks.
Here is the image uploaded again. This is a low resolution scan so it can be uploaded as an attachment. The original nice glossy photograph was courtesy of the Handley Page Publicity office c.1969. The photo itself may have been taken early sixties as the Halifax nose was at Skyfame at Staverton by the mid sixties.

Ooops looks like it still dosn’t work. I will hold off until it does.

Trying for about the fourth time.

Chaps, we have been discussing this with Webbie. Apparently some members were still able to load images etc after the attachy image option had been temp disabled pending the switch over to the new forum. It is those images that have been lost unfortunately and can’t be recovered.

Ok, I am also now logged in and I can’t see the image either. I haven’t done anything. Can the Mods explain please?

HP111

I am logged on and I cannot see your attached images in post #5. 🙁

Can’t see image so have no idea what you’re all talking about.:confused:

Looks like with this new fangled version of the forum software you have to be logged on to see attached images.

Forgotten I had this picture. This is Handley Page negative ref A36 190. The area in question is on the extreme right and is just a wide expanse of tarmac.

Not sure what that Victor is doing. It is at the wrong end to have just taken off and seems in the wrong configuration and too high and at the wrong angle to be landing. People may also be interested in that strange looking Halifax propped up on the grass.

Can’t see image so have no idea what you’re all talking about.:confused:

A Canberra B.2 part of a batch of 75 built at Radlett crashed into the railway embankment when the controls jammed on a pre-delivery test, WJ622 25.2.1954. http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/memorial/entry.php?id=231

The railway embankment was to the NE end of the main runway close to St Albans.

You don’t need a railway forum, you can see that this concrete structure is VERY close to the line of the old railway line. You can still see the line of the old railway line on a modern map.
If you look on the west side of the A5 you’ll see a curved line of folliage just to the north of Branch Road….. this is the line of the old railway, that went from How Wood Stn on the St.Albans Abbey line across to the main line on the east of the airfield to where there used to be what was Napsbury Station, which is also now long gone.
The line is marked ‘Old Railway’ on a 1930 OS map, so it was pulled up before the HP airfield was extended north.

The railway explanation seems perfectly reasonable to me, and it doesn’t seem important enough to pursue further.
I had a thought about the posing of the Handley Page photo. I don’t think I am imagining it, but I seem to recall the chap in the HP public relations office (next door to the Training School, I used to pop in from time to time) saying that they wanted a shot to link the airfield and the Victor with Snorlbans (err, St Albans) and they had to do it at the end nearest to St Albans for it to be sufficiently prominent in the picture. (Then the aircraft had to be facing the camera in an “action shot” and it was starting to get a bit complicated but they managed).

May I suggest that it may not be aviation-related at all? A long time ago (pre-HP) there was a short lived railway connection between the St.Pancras to Midlands main line and the Watford Junction – St.Albans Abbey branch line. This chord was closed long before Sir Frederic came on the scene but certainly there was the stub of a curve heading off across the airfield, and other railway infrastructure locally, extant well into the 70/s – if not later. The old line was certainly in that general area – could it therefore be old rail infrastructure?
Does anyone subscribe to a railway forum?

You don’t need a railway forum, you can see that this concrete structure is VERY close to the line of the old railway line. You can still see the line of the old railway line on a modern map.
If you look on the west side of the A5 you’ll see a curved line of folliage just to the north of Branch Road….. this is the line of the old railway, that went from How Wood Stn on the St.Albans Abbey line across to the main line on the east of the airfield to where there used to be what was Napsbury Station, which is also now long gone.
The line is marked ‘Old Railway’ on a 1930 OS map, so it was pulled up before the HP airfield was extended north.

Isn’t it quite an old view of the airfield, thought that the runways had been ripped up in the early 2000’s. Looking at it again it certainly is an old view, the M25 hadn’t been widened. So whatever it was is still there or they managed to break it out, Google Earth shows the airfield as it is now more or less. The latest images are 2011.

May I suggest that it may not be aviation-related at all? A long time ago (pre-HP) there was a short lived railway connection between the St.Pancras to Midlands main line and the Watford Junction – St.Albans Abbey branch line. This chord was closed long before Sir Frederic came on the scene but certainly there was the stub of a curve heading off across the airfield, and other railway infrastructure locally, extant well into the 70/s – if not later. The old line was certainly in that general area – could it therefore be old rail infrastructure?
Does anyone subscribe to a railway forum?

Looks like they have been trying to break it up..

Thought for a minute the Victor shot was at Bruntingthorpe!

The Halifax is PN323, and the nose is now in the IWM. More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/parkstreetparrot/6991226795/

Edit: snap!!

The Halifax with the mocked up single fin was used for some sort of telecom trials, and survives as the forward fuselage section in the care of the IWM, latterly at Lambeth.

Looks like the Victor is practising an overshoot.

Wonder if its a reservoir? See the Robbo helicopter in flight just off shot.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]215718[/ATTACH]Forgotten I had this picture. This is Handley Page negative ref A36 190. The area in question is on the extreme right and is just a wide expanse of tarmac.

Not sure what that Victor is doing. It is at the wrong end to have just taken off and seems in the wrong configuration and too high and at the wrong angle to be landing. People may also be interested in that strange looking Halifax propped up on the grass.

It seems to have been under the runway extension. My guess is either engineering support under the extension, or some facility off the end of the original runway. That is assuming that it is an old structure and they are not building it right now.

thanks for adding the link 🙂