Cardington

[tmmorris]

I know what they do at Cardington, but every time I pass, it appears deserted. It's quite a large airspace obstacle (vertically, anyway) for what appears to be very little activity and there's no DACS.

Anyone ever seen any activity there?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Tethered balloons to carry meteorological instrumentation, and testing of small UAVs is what they do there. I believe that increasingly they're running LIDARS - upward facing laser instruments there as well.

Have I seen anything from the air? Nope.

Are they busy? - almost certainly from the fact that I'm regularly seeing, professionally, numerous results and papers from the research that they do there.

I certainly wouldn't risk flying through it - the odds of my not seeing what they do there, when they're doing it, are much too high for my taste.

G

[500 above]

The sheds are still occasionally used for the inflation of airships. And so they should be, with their history.

[Victorian]

Neville Shute Norway, the author, did the stress calculations on the R-100 airship. He recounts flying solo in shirtsleeves from Howden in Yorkshire, where the ship was being built, to a meeting at Cardington in an Airspeed Oxford and landing on the grass outside the sheds.

It was that tale that did more than any other to get my youthful mind to think about the advantages of owning a private aeroplane. But I've never yet landed on the grass at Cardington although I've flown past it many times. I wonder ...

(Actually, if Shute had extolled the advantages of owning a Pink Elelphant, I'd probably have one of those as well).

Edited to say that the timing of this can't be quite right, because the airships were long gone by the time the Oxford appeared, but he did land on the grass at Cardington...

[chevvron]

A friend of mine did ATC camp at Cardington in the late 50s or early 60s and he said they operated Chipmunks there for the cadets.

[Evanelpus]

Are they still using the hangars for film sets?

[VictorGolf]

I drove past the other day and the cladding was being removed from one of the sheds. As they are "listed" buildings I assume this was by way of a repair rather than a demolition. A chap used to keep a Minicab (light aircraft) there some years ago and every time he wanted to fly the "erks" had to wind open the doors. I also remember going to a flying display there in the 80s and seeing a Tornado do the lowest flyby I've ever seen and was it noisy!

[monacam44]

The eastern shed was refurbished some years ago and until quite recently housed the Gotham City film set. The western shed is now in the process of being refurbished as well.

I've got a some great photos of the inside of the western shed if I could just work out how to post them.....

[PaulisHome]

I've landed there a couple of times in the past three years (glider land out).

They've got a strip, which they relaid two or three years ago. Clearly, watching out for the wires and met balloon is important.

If you do end up there (in a glider), it's polite to go and apologise to the met office for busting their danger area. They've been friendly - I had a really interesting tour around the met office and good discussion of the research there. Even saw the laser which was mentioned earlier.

Warner Bros were using one of the hangers to film one of the Batman films when I was last there.


Paul

[Talkdownman]

Google Maps shows a a yellow Luscombe which has, in the recent past, operated from there, often back and forth to Caterham strip. ISTR it's G-AKUH.

[Romeo Tango]

I remember testing a hot air airship there in the 1970s with my father and Don Cameron.

As a boy it was one of the most impressive buildings I had ever seen, especially as the H&S was not so pervasive so it was possible to climb up onto the roof ....