View Full Version : Unknown Airfield
Flyer 719
18th Sep 2005, 15:15
Can anyone help identify this airfield?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/REFLAGG/OTHER/UNKNOWN.jpg
I would imagine that it is closed now and probably not much left of it.
I think it is in Cornwall or Devon - but that is just a guess!!
Excuse the quality, it is a scan of a photocopy of the original picture.
719
diginagain
18th Sep 2005, 15:36
It's Nancekuke, known now as RAF Portreath, just north of Redruth.
Edited to add that the airfield remains extant, although there's an aerial farm in the south eastern quarter, and a radome towards the western end.
The place was an outstation of Porton Down, and used as a factory for the manufacture of chemical agents into the 1970s.
jabberwok
18th Sep 2005, 16:02
Looks pretty much the same from the air..
Portreath (http://www.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?client=public&X=165000&Y=45000&width=500&height=300&gride=&gridn=&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=&pc=&zm=0&scale=25000&upright.x=63&upright.y=4)
(Multimap link)
Talkdownman
19th Sep 2005, 17:44
Can anybody explain the unusual 06/24 runway markings?
diginagain
19th Sep 2005, 18:29
Perhaps the runway is marked up like that for conspicuity - it's the first runway a Hawk (out of Culdrose) returning over the Celtic Sea from the North would come across.
On the other hand, they could delineate displaced thresholds and runway sides.
ShyTorque
19th Sep 2005, 23:14
Ah yes - I was discussing this just a short time ago with a friend who has a farm not too far away. He confirmed the Porton Down connection; apparently not a place to go ploughing indiscriminately due to potential nasties allegedly buried there. :yuk:
The runway was used many years ago by the SKTU from St Mawgan for training. Run-on landings etc. Been a long time since I was there so not sure about now.
diginagain
20th Sep 2005, 11:38
ShyTorque, of greater concern is the whereabouts of plant and plumbing from the factory. Local opinion is that most, if not all of it went down a disused mineshaft on the edge of the airfield.
Some legacy.:(
ShyTorque
20th Sep 2005, 20:41
Diginagain
But no weapons of mass destruction have ever been found.... :\
MOD link: http://www.mod.uk/issues/nrp/history.htm
The chevrons running up to the threshold denote that the surface is not for use on landing. The chevrons running down the side of the runway denote that the shoulders are not maintained and not to be used for aircraft movement - bad ground if you like.