Originally Posted by
Easy Street
"Let it melt" is fine if the only cost is the odd down-day. How far do you let that argument run, though? What about a down-week? Or a down-fortnight?
In days of yore, when we had more airfields than we had MRDs, in the winter of 62/63, we have about 15-18 inches of the stuff and the Staish of Hullavington, one Gp Capt Max, decided that let it lie was the best option.
It lay.
As the Nav School programme was tied in to the next Nav School etc things started to look a bit skew. The plan was hatched to clear about 4000 feet and launch the Varsities to Topcliffe. Good plan.
What we managed to do with lots of studes trampling around on the runway was create an ice-strip of 8 inches of packed snow. It worked though and the aircraft duly boltholed - we had to go by train.