Samuel, you remind me. I was the snow controller at Waddington, a job allocated to Ops rather than the ATC. We had an aircraft stuck at Goose until we could get the field open. The snow at Waddo was exceptionally deep.
The modern maxim of keeping all vehicles off the airfield manoeuvring area did not apply and the lineys going to B-D and E had caused ruts in the western taxy way. We had a solid wall of ice over two feet high right down the centre of the taxy way from the gin palace to RW03 threshold. It was there long after the rest of the snow had melted.
Anyway the pressure was on to get the Goose aircraft back before Monday. This would clear the CinCs tote and allow the next batch of aircraft to go overseas. He always liked as many serviceable aircraft as he could get come Monday morning.
By early Sunday we thought the airfield would be cleared so the Goose aircraft, I think it was Art Legge, was given the proceed. In those days you could not cross the pond without a proceed message. The day was brilliant, 96 million miles vis and a low setting sun when he was due to land. I asked Supply (Stores) for Potassium Permanganate to mark the snow drifts from the 03 threshold to Charlie dispersal and they supplied it. The V-Force did not have VOG and priority one for nothing.
We then set the snow blows to clear the remaining snow from the runway. As advertised they melted some snow, turned some into ice, and blew great chunks of it around to no real effect. Eventually the Goose aircraft checked in. The snow blows were cleared on to the lazy and I did a final check of the runway. 90% clear we told him.
In the bar afterwards the Captain said "I thought you said the runway was 90% clear. It was covered with ice all over. I thought the 10% would have been down either side."
It was 90% clear. There was one square foot of ice stuck firmly to the surface in every 10 square feet. DOH!