Anyone else notice the theme from Jurassic Park being played in the background during the take off sequence?…………appropriate or just a tad sarcastic….?

There is still part of the runway left albeit only as a reminder it was once an airfield (with the longest runway in Europe).
Its about 100 feet square and is at (what was) the intesection of the main runway and taxiway. In fact just about where the old FIAT enclosure used to be.
As far as I know the last aviation movement was in March 1993 when a Starlifter took the last cruise missile home.

Ironically, according to the book Common Ground not only did the peace women try to prevent the missles arriving, they even tried to stop the Starlifter from leaving too…..by lying down on the runway!

A bit of useless information too, the then base commander had an annual budget for fence repairs of £750,000.

If you need further reading I can reccommend David Fairhalls book Common Ground and John Kippins Cold War Pastoral. Both available from Amazon.

You can also get a good idea of the airfield layout on Google earth. The photo seems to have been taken about 5 years ago as the runways aren’t there but the vegetation hasn’t grown yet.

Thanks for that Mark12, it ties in nicely with something the council guy said plus a couple of PM’s on here too.

I think I’ll leave well alone.

Pity as they’d make a good tourist attraction.