Originally Posted by
Thrust Augmentation
On a serious note though, the winds in that area are often pretty abysmal - hold the car door when opening, so it doesn't get wrapped around the door pillar bad & a great place if you're a Dust devil spotter. Although worst in the summer months, the wind Is pretty unpredictable, which makes me wonder what a sensible place it is / would have been for a strip.
Indeed wind is often significant over there. I wouldn't want to attempt a night landing with a WWII aircraft with zero navaid.
That being said given the extraordinary effort that was put into setting up the "villa Winter" I am fairly convinced that the airstrip was not purely symbolic. I'm sure there muss be some historical record of flight operation there...