Upper Heyford shelters saved for the nation…

I don’t think a single HAS will be demolished due to how difficult it would be break them down. I think they will still be around in 500 years…..easy.( if not longer )

Yes I think you might find that as redundant airfields get converted for housing etc, plans will be submitted for alternative use of some of the established ‘harder to demolish buildings’.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jan/28/cold-war-bunkers-preserved

All we need now is a few F-111Es to come back from D-M to make them look lived in

Still plenty in Arizona desert.. Why not get a group together and get one back over..?

Or you could get one from the Aussies and ask them fly it over…they got a great deal on some surplus FB-111s (F-111G, IIRC).

Aren’t the Aussie ones all retired now?

Aren’t the Aussie ones all retired now?

In process, not quite. Some have been retired including F-111G The Boneyard Wrangler now preserved at the RAAF Museum. Of course the F-111C is an Australian-only version – so would be an odd example to use. The G model is the alternative.

I wouldn’t like to go near the paperwork to reactivate a DM F-111 or reallocate an Australian one to the UK. Let alone to make it happen!

Although it would be ‘nice’ to see a 111 at UH, there’s already three of the type displayed in the UK.

apart from Duxford, where are the other two James?

In process, not quite. Some have been retired including F-111G The Boneyard Wrangler now preserved at the RAAF Museum. Of course the F-111C is an Australian-only version – so would be an odd example to use. The G model is the alternative.

I wouldn’t like to go near the paperwork to reactivate a DM F-111 or reallocate an Australian one to the UK. Let alone to make it happen!

as an addendum to James’ post, all F-111G were retired in late 2007 with the winding up of the OCU, the remainder still flying are 18 x F-111C and 4 x RF-111C, although they are all due to be retired by December 10 2010.

The G’s are currently sitting in open storage on a disused runway at RAAF Amberley, the only RAAF F-111 base, it is unknown what will become of these machines as they were procured under a FMS, and AFAIK the US DoD has the final say in theyre disposition.

The C’s are a different kettle of fish as i am led to believe they were purchased by Australia outright at the time of order, meaning that the US has no say (theoretically) in theyre final disposition.

As for civillian flying of a Pig, i would have to say it would be near impossible, the aircraft are obviously far more complex than either a Lightning or Vulcan, and are even more maintenance intensive than the former, clocking in now at some 140-150 maintenance hours per flight hour.

However a C model wouldnt look all that out of place as when they were all “zero timed” in the mid ’90s early 00’s they were retrofitted with brand spanking new extended span G model wings

Hi James
I must have missed the one at Cosford

It’s squeezed in behind the Valiant!

apart from Duxford, where are the other two James?

Hi Rich, aswel as 67-0120 at DX, 74-0177 in Cosford Cold War hangar and 68-0011 on a plinth at Lakenheath, to be honest unsure of latest status of that one and would love to know.

Hi James

Of course there is one at Lakenheath, I can’t believe I forgot about that one! She looked great in Feb 2009;
http://airfields.fotopic.net/p57025997.html

I must have missed the one at Cosford, will have to re-check my photos to see!

Cheers

I was probably paying too much attention to the Valliant in that case!

Thanks CanberraA84.

Wasn’t the C the same as what the RAF was going to receive with the ‘K’?
Would be nice to see one painted in RAF sqn marks as a ‘what if’ at Cosford.

Coat, door…

Sad as I may seem I often thought the HAS’s at RAF Bruggen would have made nice houses when I was stationed there, add a 2nd floor in them, remove the doors and add a full height and width glass wall in their place with entrance, then cut through the sides in areas and add large windows to the sloping sides… It would last an eternity and I reckon the sheer thickness of the structure it would be well insulated.

Here’s a view I took of UH in May last year, when we cruised passed it while travelling down to Oxford in the Rapide to run pleasure flights. It wasn’t until I flew over the base that I recognised quite how many hardened shelters had been built there.

Tim
AACF Volunteer

No wonder they ‘saved’ them for nation! I think it’s the other way round.

Have any in the country ever been demolished?

Even similar one’s in Iraq hit by a 2,000lb bomb were only damaged (as a structure)

Have any in the country ever been demolished?

Yes, one at Alconbury, blown up by the SAS as an experiment – photos on this thread on AiX.

Cheers

the HAS’s at RAF Bruggen would have made nice houses when I was stationed there, add a 2nd floor in them, remove the doors and add a full height and width glass wall in their place with entrance, then cut through the sides in areas and add large windows to the sloping sides…

Well apart from the glass wall you seem to have described the Operations Centre building at Bruggen. I had to visit it as well as the Sqn Ops buildings and the Special Stores Area (I wonder what they kept there :rolleyes:) for my work with RAFSEE in the 80s.
It was quite a comfortable Office space on two levels, the only problem being the lack of windows. I remember one winter trip when I went in in the morning and left in the evening and never saw daylight.