Originally Posted by
Liffy 1M
These are some places where the oldest GE imagery is completely missing an airfield. Brize Norton is a good example, whereby just fields are shown, whereas Broadwell, just a few miles to the west, is clearly visible. Other airfields that are "missing" are Hullavington and Keevil. I wonder whether some airfields have been purposely omitted and an artificial overlay of fields inserted instead?
Hmmmm, very interesting.
I found
this article with an WW2 aerial photograph of Staverton (which opened in 1931), clearly showing attempts to camouflage the airfield, but that camouflage doesn't correspond to the Google Earth imagery. However Google Earth does show some nearby buildings which I suspect were associated with the airfield. I've also just noticed that the Google Earth imagery shows a higher level of contrast over the area of the airfield itself; I suspect you're right, and that the images have been doctored.
Upper Heyford (1918) is completely missing, but without the increased contrast. Bicester (1916) looks as though the airfield is visible, possibly including actual camouflage features. I can't see any hangars, which there would have been by 1940; they may have been removed from the imagery, or just lost on the join between 2 images.
Edit: And this snippet from the Wikipedia page for Croughton (which appears very clearly in the imagery):
In September 1940 the Air Ministry decided that certain stations would be designated as emergency airfields. These stations would give assistance to any operational aircraft returning damaged or with engine problems. The Station Commander at RAF Upper Heyford received one of these orders. RAF Brackley (Croughton) would remain open with its flare paths illuminated irrespective of enemy activity in the area. This meant that RAF Brackley along with other emergency airfields attracted additional enemy night attacks. Added to this accepted high risk was the fact that RAF Brackley was a training airfield.