Wyton Tower wall
The story about the jackhammers brought back memories. The structures of the era must have been made of some really good concrete. I worked in 4 hangar at Wyton for 14 years. I wondered for a while in the TACEVAL days what all the black tape markings on the walls were. Someone told me that if it was for real they would be knocked into doorways. Curiosity satisfied!
Must have been after some SALT talks and Open skies goings on and the fear that the reds would be allowed access into areas where the doors were above a certain size. Well as you can imagine there were areas within the hangar where even some of our own were not allowed.
Extensive remodelling took place with several doors bricked up to comply with the requirement. A new door was required at the bottom of some stairs into the main hangar. - Well the jack hammering began but soon stopped as they gave up. A week or two later a scaffold was erected and some specialist guided diamond drilling equipment brought in. the drill was powered through the corners of the aperture. the cores hung around for years used as door stops. they were most attractive ornaments. next a large diamond circular saw was used to join the dots. It too ran on rails and was water cooled. IIRC the operation took a good few weeks. part of the cost was worked out on the wear on the tools. Goodness knows how many blades they got through.
Funny thing is the [Berlin] wall came down not many years after. All that effort and I don't think we saw it coming!!
Then there was the story of the fragile roof - 1982 they built a workshop Annex. (I think it was last the band store or model railway club a couple of years back) I watched them haul in some large precast concrete roof beams. the gaps between them were filled with concrete pumped from a mixer. And a 2ft square section concrete perimeter cast. Great entertainment! they then put some foam blocks and tar on the roof. and appended signs "Fragile Roof use crawling boards" on all sides. As if you were going to fall through it!
One of the foam blocks became the space model for the Puma and SeaKing rear RWR radome but don't tell anyone!! Still flying on the Puma 30 years on.
back to Control Towers - Wyton was green at one time. I think it became a red and white chess board at some stage