RAF Control Towers

Sorry must add .
Hopefully when time and space is available i will try and rebuild from the plans a vcr desk with all the instruments built back in .
Just a shame i cant refit it into binbrooks tower. 🙁

Binbrook tower was demolished i think in 95 after kids set fire to it on a previous date.
Damage was minimal i can remember at the time as only one room burnt out.
It was still fairly complete when i maged to get the instruments.
The vcr room had a lot of parts still fitted but unfortunately the kids had stamped all over them.
Lucky for me was plenty of spare parts still left which i manged to clean up and make them look like new.
From what i can remember i got the barrier /Trafic light control panel.
Telephone console panels from the local and assistants position.
The pabx room was completely still racked out apart from a few items removed and thrown on floor.There was a filing cabinet which contained a lot of wiring diagrams for nearly all the comms systems which had been emptied and thrown all over the place.Luckily i managed to get nearly all of tem including the plans for the controllers desk and the wing ops desk which were still in perfect condition considering there dated in the 60,s.
It was such a shame they demolished it as i didnt have enought ime to get everything out as it had so much left in.
I did manage to quickly unscrew some door plaques as well.
I shall have to take some pics and post them.
I also have in my collection of binbrook items some traffic lights of the airfield and a full papi light set up (Yes i know its sad but at the time it was binbrook history to me and now it is all gone).
I am always looking for anything binbrook related so if anyone hears of anythin please let me know.

Binbrook74, check your PMs

RAF recruiting films did include sequences inside the VCR. Also try the school of air traffic control, RAF Shawbury.

My understanding is that it was a large set piece – attached to the side of either the real control tower or some other building. It was made from wood and taken down after filming.

Hello All,

The tower that was at Binbrook, was badly damaged/destroyed by fire sometime in the early 90s after the film Memphis Belle finished. Although I cannot remember exactly when.

Tim

Wasn’t that the dummy tower that they built especially for the film?
Did they destroy the established RAF tower aswel?

Hello All,

The tower that was at Binbrook, was badly damaged/destroyed by fire sometime in the early 90s after the film Memphis Belle finished. Although I cannot remember exactly when.

Tim

I have loads of pics from VHT and 2548/55 type tower VCRs, can’t remember off the top of my head what Binners tower was, but believe all type/55 on VCRs were the same standard. The problem is if the equipment you have is pre the equipment my pics will show.
I assume you’ve tried controltowers.com?
Lighting was fairly clever, there was/is an A centre in the bottom of the tower which receive signals by cables from the controllers switches and converts them into digital signals. These are then sent to B centres which process the digital signals, usually one near both ends of a runway, which in turn usually control about one half of the runway lights. This ensures some lighting if one centre fails or gets destroyed. The runway lighting is controlled by the assistant from a console, and the controller controls traffic lights from a console with the airfield diagram represented on it.
As far as I’m aware PSA didn’t make consols, but they did service them and the rest of the lighting kit.
This is only general info, again I don’t know about Binbrook particularly, however one of my best friends was a controller there in the mid 80s.

Are you restoring the tower (is it still there?) or setting up a display somewhere?
Its good to see RAF ATC gear being preserved.

‘PSA’ is short for Property Services Agency, the agency belonged to the DOE, its remit being to maintain H.M. Government buildings in the UK and in the case of the armed forces throughout the world.

The agency was replaced by the private sector in the 1990’s. 🙁

wf