PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Three more airbases to close?
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Old 27th Jan 2010, 09:14
  #54 (permalink)  
Easy Street
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
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if the GR4 force loose a couple more Sqns why not move Marham to Kinloss and have all your Tornados co-located with huge savings and benefits to staff.
If the GR4 force lose a couple more sqns then a far better co-location option would be to put them all at Marham. There is easily enough ramp space for 2 more sqns, complete with Rubb shelters (formerly occupied by 9 and 31 sqns before they joined 2 and 13 on the HAS sites). The BAE depth maintenance facility is there. Marham is also far better placed than Lossie for servicing Close Air Support trg, of which a large proportion is carried out in Wales and the southwest - and this is the primary operational role at the moment. Kinloss' runway is on the short side for peacetime GR4 ops and contrary to previous comments the goose hazard is a very significant issue - it's acceptable on exercises purely because exercises are short-term, it would be a different matter to operate there permanently.

The main things Lossie / Kinloss have got going for them are immediate access to rugged low-flying terrain and the HRA, neither of which are enough to swing it in my opinion. The weather factor argument could go round and round forever, I've lost just as many flying days at Lossie to the 'har' or gale-force winds as I've lost to the East Anglian clag...

Of course politics will interfere so all this is academic.
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