Raf Strubby

If you look on Pprune forum they have “what airfield is this”and Strubby featured recently with some pictures.

Suprisingly Strubby was never finished, there were always quite a few concrete bases for Nissen Huts but the remained empty, The bottom Dispersal (Pan) near the ATC was never surfaced and the Runway nearest the Tower was disused and the surface in poor condition, the short runway wasn’t used very often and rarely on night flying, when the Meteors used it at night the lighting was by Goosenecks, a sort of large watering can that had a wick that was lit, they were equally spaced down the runway, the short runway never had electric lighting.
The Hangars at this time were black and a lot of the buildings still had camouflage paint, this changed to hangars green and the other buildings an ochre colour(yellowy) our crew room was this colour but the doors and window frames were a Brunswick green, it all looked very smart but it had lost that wartime unique atmosphere, at the same time all the bowsers and tractors and ground equipment was painted bright yellow, before that we had RAF blue but with a yellow topping on the bowsers and tractors, the Mini’s retained their RAF blue as did the J2 crew buses.

Interesting, the Macaws only practiced over Strubby in the last two years and we had to stop flying early because of that, they were doing their routine directly over the main runway one day and I borrowed a ground signal box from the radio men (moonies) the box was a foot or so square but it had a extendable aerial similar to the type on a transistor radio, I got up on our crew room roof with the box and aerial extended, it looked like a big remote for a model aircraft, I then made out I was controlling the Macaws, the men on 1 Sqdn Varsities were a great bunch always up for practical jokes.

Somebody at Manby got a sink plunger and fashioned out of cardboard the end of a key stuck it to the plunger and then stuck it on the side of a JP, we always called them clockwork mice.

There was an incident at Manby where someone had marked a message out on the white top part of the airframe above the training command logo, the Varsities were always dirty so it must have been easy with a damp rag say, the message read “**** me said the Duchess” this was noticed as the aircraft taxied past whilst the AOC was visiting the tower, OOPS !
There was no shortage of pranksters at Strubby as the men were mostly ex RAF fitters and as civilians had little time for rank and military order.

On my landing wall

[ATTACH=CONFIG]250852[/ATTACH]:cool:

The wind turbines are a couple of miles off the eastern end of the main runway. An annoyance but thankfully a respectful distance from the airfield.

The airfield is in surprisingly good condition. Most of the main runway is still intact although the eastern end is now dug-up. But the western end is much the same as it was when I was a kid. It’s also now possible to drive straight onto the airfield and onto the runway. The hangars are still in commercial use and the control tower has been renovated and is now a private dwelling. The main admin site is disused and tatty but still mostly intact.

Great old airfield where the mighty Varsities once chugged around… happy days.

No more photos anywhere??

There’s been a load of wind turbines plonked on it now hasn’t there? 🙁

With the former airfield about 3 miles away from me now and me constantly visiting the aquatic centre this is why i am trying to find pictures of the base .
Hopefull going to photograph the buildings which are left on the airfield site in the next week or two.

My one and only visit to Strubby was back in July 1967- there were several Varsities and a couple of visiting Jet Provosts.

Most interesting things were some USAF F-4s from Alconbury doing approaches/overshoots.

I’d also love to see any pictures from Strubby’s past, although they seem to be very rare – I’ve only ever seen 4-5 pictures on the internet from the days when the airfield was active.

I also drive past Strubby a lot (had a run down the remains of the runway on New Year’s Eve in my car!), and I have great fondness for the place as it was where I first got hooked on aircraft when I was a kid. CAW Varsities chugging out to the western end of the runway, brakes squealing, ahh… Dominies doing overshoots, and the Macaws Jet Provosts flying display rehearsals… those were the days!

Hi paul.
Just posted on there as well.
Thankyou anyway .:)

Hi,

Try the airfield exchange forums…. They are a helpful bunch. I am sure that someone there will have some pictures.

http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/

Paul.