What happens at North Luffenham

[Pontius Navigator]

Have a look at Google Earth and North Luffenham airfield.
Now that is a bomb damaged runway. What are the Harriers and the Hunter doing there? Are the other aircraft JPs?

[pr00ne]

PN,

The station is St.Georges barracks with a resident Army unit. The old airfield is the Airfield EOD Training Flight, a RAF detachment from Wittering.

[Talking Radalt]

I spent a week in a slit-trench there once. :uhoh:

[pr00ne]

TR,

I got thrown off the back of a 4-tonner!

[hobie]

26 is fairly well $$$$$$ ...... :cool:

Who did that I wonder? ...

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/s76.html

52°37'52.96"N 0°36'18.98"W

[Lancelot37]

We used to receive the Thor guided misiles from the U.S by transport a/c at R.A.F Cottesmore and they were transported by road to North Luffenham in 1959/61.

[TEEEJ]

They are indeed Jet Provosts. Images of the JPs can be found at the bottom link posted. The Hunter is made up to look like a Russian Su-7 FITTER. (Armed defecting aircraft). There used to be a Phantom there too.

At the bottom of the following link you can find images of the Harrier and Hunter at North Luffenham.

http://www.pbase.com/stevieb/2003misc

http://www.air-scene-uk.com/hangar/2001/northluff/northluff.htm

[Chris Kebab]

All I can really remember from Luffenham is the brief from one of the docs "Whatever you do this evening - lay off the Ruddles".

Err right.

[Pontius Navigator]

Remember with the Koch fastener drag we all declined to play.

We had one drag, over the snow, on our backs. We declined the offer of a drag face down. The instructor said it was OK and proceeded tp show us how it was done.

We all agreed that he had done it so well that we had learnt sufficiently and did not need to try ourselves. Despite threats we knew that he could not cancel an entire F4 course :}

[RileyDove]

There are no Jet Provosts at North Luffenham any more . There is a Harrier GR.3 - Phantom - Hunter and decepid Whirlwind helicopter there.

[Vasco Sodcat]

I remember being shot up a rail in a JP bang-seat with an allegedly one-third charge - seemed a bizarre way to remain fit-to-fly on my flying training which commenced the very next week :confused:

[sitigeltfel]

Does anyone know how to determine when the images for any given area were taken?

Look at Prestwick and you can see C-25s dotted about on the two runways, but not one Ryanair 737-800!

No prizes for being the first to spot the Rutan VariEze.

[ARINC]

I spent a week in a slit-trench there once.

Now there's a coincidence...so did I !

[haltonapp]

I can remember being snowed in there when I was required to attend a decompression excercise in 79ish, we were a C130 Halo crew, I was in the last but one vehicle to enter from Stamford railway station for two days, the randy copilot was in the last! We were not best pleased the next morning to hear that the course had been cancelled before we had left Lyneham. I also remember the arrival at Stamford railway station and it being like a scene from Dr Zhivago! Happy days!!

[Gainesy]

I recall the brief was: "Lay off the Ruddles and keep away from curry houses".:uhoh:

[threeputt]

My recollection is that it was a quarter charge. As a nav stude at 6FTS in 71, I, along with a few others, was detailed to demo the seat to Joe Public. I must have gone up the dammned thing about 15 times at least, no wonder my back hurts now!

Thanks to the MOD's for the auto-birthday greetings PM yesterday, a nice touch. :ok:

3P

[henry crun]

I gather from the comments on this thread it is no longer a N/F OCU.

Why do the powers that be have to keep changing the station roles, it is most confusing for us crumblies ?
I quite enjoyed my brief stay there in early 1956.

[Wader2]

Why do the powers that be have to keep changing the station roles, it is most confusing for us crumblies ?

It was the only way to get works services done.

If you had been in Seco huts for 10 years why did you need a new building?

If you had been working effectively in s:mad:e accommodation for 20 years why did you need a new build?

Ah, just moving into a new station we need x, y and z. Only way we can get that is with a new build :)

Unfortunately we wold then move out and hand it all over to the Army.

Now isn't it funny, but how many RAF Airfields that have been closed as part of the defence cuts have actually left the MOD?

Lindholme, Stradishall, Gaydon, Middleton, Binbrook, Greenham Common, but

Ouston, Dishforth, Catterick, Leconfield, Kirton Lindsay, Waterbeach, Wattisham, Bentwaters, Watton, Sculthorpe

So what did the Army give up?

[johnfairr]

Nearly wrote off half of our F-4 course coming back from the pub to North Luffenham. Had been imbibing Ruddles finest and where the road turned left, my Austin A55, with 6 crew on board, carried straight on into a ploughed field!

Next day we had our Aero-med rapid decompression and one idiot actually took his mask off as we were being slowly brought back to normality. He rushed out of the chamber into the toilets and was not a well chappie. All that smelly stuff was too much for him!

Wingco Medic was not amused and bollocked the next course of Jag mates and told them that if they came in the next day looking like us, he’d send them all back with a DNCO. Like PN said earlier, he could hardly do that, so the sorry, smelly saga continued . . . .

:ok:

[Wader2]

Next day we had our Aero-med rapid decompression and one idiot actually took his mask off as we were being slowly brought back to normality.

Yeah, we had that too. Only thing was, the idiot was the MO who was in the chamber with us.:}.

He was almost upset that none of us dropped our masks.:)

[airborne_artist]

So what did the Army give up?

Large numbers of German barracks. Lots of less than happy locally employed Germans as a result, not to mention the cabbies, pizza houses and the rest.

[AonP]

Wader2

Don't forget the RAF recently managed to get Kirton in Lindsey back from the Army!

[Sl4yer]

I was there as an ATC cadet in 1987. As far as I recall, the runway was blown up as training for the runway repairers. So, yes, the airfield was closed by then. Not much was going on except for the aviation medical stuff and Midland Radar.

I believe it was a Canadian Sabre base before the Thors arrived. There were some abandoned American cars near the end of one of the runways (the 26 end probably) and a couple of Sea Vixens with rotted undercarriage.