Has anyone been on Google Earth lately and seen the old Ordnance Survey aerial photos posted over some parts of the country. The date given on the photos is 1945. However this is incorrect in at least some areas.
Tarrant Rushton would appear not to have an airfield in 12/1945??? very confusing.
I do like the way you can use the slider bar to go back and forward in time. Try Birmingham airport. The 1945 image looks correct on this one.
By: Paul Holtom - 29th January 2013 at 15:17
Hope GE includes more photos as time goes on. A lot of the airfields I would like to look at are in areas which at present are not covered before 1999.
By: FoxVC10 - 29th January 2013 at 09:41
B-17 and B-24s mostly. And where the “site” is now there appear to be Mustangs (or similar) and other single engine types.
Know the place well, I did no end of detachments to Honnington in the late 80’s and very early 90’s.
By: Snoopy7422 - 28th January 2013 at 23:36
Many Pre-War Images.
I have used this a lot. There are many many pre-war images used and many airfields are therefore missing. It’s very interesting, though frustrating, as the res’ is pretty poor compared to the modern stuff….!
By: Paul Holtom - 28th January 2013 at 21:37
Some look like B-17s, wonder if it’s from the USAAF Air Depot days?
I think your right Pagen.
If you look at the 1999 image you can see some bomb craters following a line just below the north east end of the main runway. They don’t appear in the black and white photo.
With some research into the date of the bombing and the arrival of the USAAF it should be easy to date the photo.
By: pagen01 - 28th January 2013 at 20:41
Some look like B-17s, wonder if it’s from the USAAF Air Depot days?
By: Paul Holtom - 28th January 2013 at 20:29
Honington is interesting. There were a lot of bomb craters around the area near the airfield after the war which I can’t see in this photo. The building I have marked was less the lower left leg of the ‘H’ when I was stationed there in the ’70s. It was bombed sometime during the war.
This is a pre 1945 image. Can any one have a guess at the type of aircraft seen. You will have to view GE to see them they are not on the attached image.
By: pagen01 - 28th January 2013 at 19:56
The ‘1940s’ GE imagery varies quite a bit according to region.
Apparently this was down to OS files that were used by GE some regions of which had the airfield censored out of the photos, or a pre station vertical was used continually through a period of the station existing.
Generally speaking the stations that are shown are of early to mid 1950s period.
It’s a fascinating resource, just check out all those airfields that were still in the London area, including a pre runway Brooklands.
By: GrahamF - 28th January 2013 at 19:55
Ive not had a great deal of success with this? Unless Im doing it wrong I found very little of the country covered?
By: Alan Clark - 28th January 2013 at 19:01
There are quite a few airfields which were there before and after the survey, I think there is a certain amount of editing which has been done to the originals to ‘remove’ some facilities from the map.
By: FoxVC10 - 28th January 2013 at 18:19
and Canberra s at Wyton …..
By: Paul Holtom - 28th January 2013 at 17:12
Tarrant Rushton airfield was definitely built before 12/1945, however it’s not shown in the photo. Same goes for Brize Norton. These images date from before 1945.
By: Jayce - 28th January 2013 at 17:08
The imagery dates from between 1945-55, IIRC. The survey covered the whole country and took about a decade to produce.
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January 28, 2013 at 4:58 pm