Aerial views of RAF fields

Marham is missing from the list, just had a look though and can’t work out how they got the Victor to land so neatly in the car park.

V Bomber – V for VTOL? 😀

Marham is missing from the list, just had a look though and can’t work out how they got the Victor to land so neatly in the car park.

Back on line at last, my new computers were installed today so I have a lot of catching up to do, life has changed drastically since I was last on here, good riddance to Finchingfield and it’s petty little ways, it’s more satisfying to be a towny again after 20 years of ‘peaceful’ village life.

Zwitter…

just FYI, but the site doesn’t seem to work on a mac – each airfield page comes up blank

The next run in a few days will have a clicky link for a browser on the location pages hopefully this will work…

Webpilot…

various categories ….

I agree, but deciding what they should be is another matter.. ideas on a postcard please…

Hell:eek: an oval curcuit runway, bet that took some skill to get to take off speed:D 😀 .

Sorry couldn’t resist!.

John.

It’s for getting pylon racers off the ground:)

Most of the images date back to 1999, Watton and Shepherds grove have changed quite abit since then.

Thanks DeanK

Thats why I thought I would post the link on a new airfield thread. No more limits on pics as it is a seperate site:p

just FYI, but the site doesn’t seem to work on a mac – each airfield page comes up blank

Just for info the Website in question is mine…

Excellent website contentd… some work has gone into that! We could have done with this site for Peter’s Airfield ID thread (now deleted). Keep up the good work.

Dean.

I think it is fantastic. Informative and fun. I’ve spent too long already trying to work out where the hangars used to be at the field I learnt to fly from! Good luck with it – and with eventually including RFC/RNAS info.

I’m not quite sure what constitutes an airfield.

This question should keep the forumites busy for a little while. 😀 I’ll just point out that lakes, rivers and coastal waters can also be airfields 😉

Allan

Thanks Webpilot…

I’m not quite sure what constitutes an airfield.. I thought I did once, but I`m not so sure now… There are about 40 locations on the really dodgy list, I`ve included them anyway but they’re flagged for more investigation… The RFC and early RAF sites are another thing altogether…

Users have been really helpful with fascinating info on locations I`d never heard of… but it really reinforces the history behind the images…

Heh. I fully understand your problem – there are many sites that were used on an informal basis in the early days maybe only for a short period and don’t really qualify as “airfields”, which implies a more formalised use. Otherwise you end up having to include places like the town park in Wisbech that played host to a Puma in 1979 for a day or two when a Harrier crashed on the town. And the Q sites are something different again.

You may end up having to classify sites into various categories to distinguish airfields from sites used temporarily without any real infrastructure and so on.

Great stuff though – would have made the guess the airfield thread we had a while back much easier!

creaking door…

Is there any way you could preserve these images on your site to show the changes over time?

That thought had occurred to me as well… I considered writing a little programme that would work it’s way through the locations at intervals, grab the images and store them… in fact I`m still thinking about it….

But from a practical point of view the problem is one of the view… I chose a default altitude as a starting point for the pages… Ok for most places.. not so hot north of the border sadly… So if the process were automated there wouldn`t be enough detail to be of much use… if a lower altitude were used interesting stuff would be left out…

Thanks Webpilot…

Hopefully you’ll be able to pull together any information like this to make it a really comprehensive site.

I’m not quite sure what constitutes an airfield.. I thought I did once, but I`m not so sure now… There are about 40 locations on the really dodgy list, I`ve included them anyway but they’re flagged for more investigation… The RFC and early RAF sites are another thing altogether…

Users have been really helpful with fascinating info on locations I`d never heard of… but it really reinforces the history behind the images…

Just for info the Website in question is mine…

Congratulations, excellent website!

And welcome to the forum.

Personally I’m not too bothered about the images being out of date.

I’d much rather see a few Lightnings or Canberras than an industrial estate!

One of my concerns with Google Earth / MS Virtual Earth is that as the sites are updated these great views into the past will be lost.

Is there any way you could preserve these images on your site to show the changes over time?

A lot to ask I know.

WA$.

Brooklands is interesting…

made up from two pics but with a section missing !

Look where the Vanguard and VC-10 are parked follow the road going east and spot the join,, there should be the River wey and BAC 1-11 (yep G-ASYD) and the varsity..

Good site though, well done..

GASYD

Very interesting if a little out of date. Shame they overlooked some, like my loal – Ludham, Norfolk

Just for info the Website in question is mine, and it’s probably worth a few notes on how it came about…

It’s a great site and all credit to you!

Still not sure about Streatham Common though! Think there was an AA Gun site there in 1939-45 but as far as I know never any “airfield” use.

Addington was, I think a decoy site for Biggin Hill but not an airfield as such.

Hopefully you’ll be able to pull together any information like this to make it a really comprehensive site.

Just for info the Website in question is mine, and it’s probably worth a few notes on how it came about…

I compile aviation themed crosswords and needed to create a really comprehensive list of UK airfields (past, present etc) and gather a bit of background info for my own reference. Whilst doing this I used many resources including Books, Old Magazines, Websites etc – not to mention submissions from researchers and enthusiasts. (full credits in due course)

I find it helpful to take a look at these airfields in MS Virtual Earth. Obviously the images are a bit dated, but the locations and “atmosphere” can still be of great interest.

I noticed that there didn`t seem to be any Websites with a comprehensive list of airfields with a common location format – ie Grid, Lat Long etc… So I decided to log the locations in decimal lat/long format… Once this was done it was easy to write a little software programme to generate the associated Web Pages for Virtual Earth and KML for Google Earth.

I still have much to do, and am aware of a few errors that need sorting, but the latest versions of the locations are freely downloadable from the Website for others to use as they wish.

Finally for now I have quite a bit of original content to be added to the Website, but it takes time to process it..

PS… It’s interesting to see how some of the locations are remembered in the form of street names… I`ve been jotting some of them down for a feature as I’ve gone along… but if you’re really really bored see how many more you can find.. take a look at Bitteswell (now an industrial estate) is an example..

http://www.content-delivery.co.uk/aviation/airfields/Bitteswell.html

Hell:eek: an oval curcuit runway, bet that took some skill to get to take off speed:D 😀 .

Sorry couldn’t resist!.

Smarta**e!:D During the 1980s someone did occasionally operate a private plane from the perimeter track, so I am guessing they used the straight bit to the west. Intriguingly, the straight feature in the photo that runs parallel to the perimeter track there was pretty much the demarcation line for the site – no major works to the west of it and just the guardhouse and a few other huts. That straight line in the hedgerows is a Roman road – so the site boundary may have been 1900 years old, give or take a few, in 1940!

It had Sommerfeld tracking runways, hence the lack of trace. I first went up there in the early 1990s and the ditches across the site had only just been reinstated. There was a LOT of relic bits of Sommerfeld in the spoil, especially the loops from the end of the rods – must have made the ploughing interesting!

Adrian

I couldnt find the vulcan at southend?

If you look carefully, you’ll see the Southend image is composed of two images – the demarcation between them runs east – west just above the gaggle of airliners and the Belfast on the tarmac. Just to the east of the southern threshold of runway 06/24, you’ll see there’s a distinct change in the colour of the grass area – one shot was taken in the summer when the grass was brown, the other at a time when the grass was dark green. Presumbably the Vulcan was moved between the shots and is in the unseen part of both…..

Blimey the Lakenheath one is well out of date…