Odiham Security Scare

[Grimweasel]

ALTON HERALD TODAY | NEWS | Plane spotters spark terror alert | 2012 (http://www.altonherald.com/news.cfm?id=404&headline=Plane+spotters+spark+terror+alert)

I reckon the MPGS or the RAF guard that 'waved them through' could be in the $hite!!

When did this happen then? Bit naughty really considering the assets at Odius!

[Finnpog]

I was wondering if everybody on here, like me, was looking the other way for the last 2 days since this was in the Mail and waiting for someone else to blow the whistle.

There were some good comments posted on the DM site, with only some being more critical than "face palming".

At least it wasn't a base that provided the home plate for any theatre critical platforms.:sad::ugh:

[NutLoose]

I see nowt's changed then, once at Odiham they will do their best to keep you there.

[November4]

Similar thing happened at the HQ of a uniformed organisation covering Avon and Somerset. One Saturday, a man pulled up at main gate and was waved through with no checks. He parked and wandered about a bit before he found an occupied office, walked in and said he was looking for the head of the organisation as he wanted to talk to him about the way his divorce was being handled.

[diginagain]

The spotters probably thought the place bore more than a passing resemblance to a museum like Duxford, and must have been delighted with the free entry.
(Any better, BGG?)

[Tiger Tales]

Let's just say the 'guards' were not airmen.

[NutLoose]

Let's just say the 'guards' were not airmen.

so they never got directions as well ? :E


I once watched the MOD's finest spend the best part of a Saturday afternoon one summer at a secret RAF training facility that used to be outside Wendover, attempt to catch an airman on a motorcycle seen riding around the station with a underwear wearing blow rubber doll as pillion...... Took them the best part of the day to catch him, to find when they finally had the said rubber doll secured in a one doll cell that he wasn't actually doing anything illegal, so they were both released to rekindle their ermmm relationship.

[Q-SKI]

Seem to remember in times past, despite checkpoint off main road that the local bus was still allowed access to married patch and a public access footpath still existed from the village! Right of way? Ha!

[nice castle]

Just thinking, if the thread meanders this way, that discussion of base security on here is not a great idea for obvious reasons.:rolleyes:

[barnstormer1968]

Nice castlew.
What are you obvious reasons (they may not be as obvious as you think)?

Keeping breaches and foul ups under wraps only allows them to continue. In a former life I spent many occasions meandering around RAF stations, power stations and other secret places just seeing how poor their security was!
As an example I once drove a civvy contractors van onto an RAF site that had a very deep bunker in it. Parked up near a 'double ringed' barbed wire fence that was 'guarded' (using that word mockingly) by armed (as in carrying) snowdrops and dogs.
To gain entry to the bunker I had to use massive cunning........Oh wait, no I didn't, I simply showed one of the snowdrops my members card for my local video rental store and in I went. I then carried a medium sized cardboard box around several floors pretending to want to deliver it (what a bomb in a box I hear you say!).

I also took some very close up, 'as in touching them' shots of sneaky Nimrods, and was not challenged.........Maybe the unmanned sangers all over the airfield made that easier, as did the lack of an effective plane guard!

All these trips were reported and registered, yet only yesterday untrained (and perhaps definitely not) civilians were mentioned on a PPRuNe thread showing their access to the outside/inside of an MR nimrod on an RAF station!

I'm not convinced that keeping quiet (and not learning lessons) is always the best way.
It is very naive IMHO to think that to keep quit about an incursion is going to plug gaps, and be any kind of deterrent to someone who WILL spend the time looking and WILL see the VERY obvious gaps in security for themselves.

Just my two penneth:)

[TBM-Legend]

remember the reggie spotters in Greece who spent a bit of time in the slammer for taking pics from 'outside' a Greek AFB. :eek:

[green granite]

I remember the morning that the police on the main gate at RAE Farnborough got suspicious about the amount of traffic leaving the establishment between 8 & 9AM so the next morning they closed the exit gate and nabbed about a hundred motorists who were using it as a shortcut to avoid the snarl ups in the town center. Since at that time the passes were green coloured they just held up a packet of Woodbines as they drove through the Pyestock gate. .

[barnstormer1968]

TBM

I remember those well. How different an experience that was to the hospitality provided to spotters by the RAF!

I was once entertained at RAF locking in the mid eighties (I know, no aircraft there), by simply saying I was in the army at the main gate, and needed something to eat, and to POL my motorbike. The gate guard was a little suspicious as I was dressed totally in civvies, but then asked me a question that would catch out any would be spy..........He said 'Are you sure you're in the army' to which I replied yes. Myself and two friends then rode around the station, and ate lunch in the junior ranks (or whatever the RAF called it) mess. I will admit to the fact we were riding 'issue' can-am bikes, but they aren't exactly impossible to get hold of.

So, my advice to spotters is try the RAF......Free pass, free food, and you get to sit in classified kit!.....Or, for a small fee, try your local museum. the kit will be the same, but the cafe will be more expensive:E

[c52]

I once got as far as the apron in Finningley's Vulcan days before I decided I'd got the wrong date for the BoB display. And back out again without being challenged.

And I remember passing Little Rissington when perimeter security was a low dry-stone wall and a shallow ditch.

[nice castle]

Barnstormer, no, I quite agree with you, you aren't understanding my point, possibly because you're not from Odiham. PM inbound.