India Four Two
Please tell me what the van with the aerials is
Mobile RV-105 (Radio Van 105) VHF/DF vehicle. As I mentioned ealier in another thread:
"In the early summer of 1959 I was a VHF/DF Operator based at RAF Abingdon in charge of a mobile [RV-105] VHF/DF station that provided cross bearings to Air Traffic Control at RAF Benson about 15-miles to the east. Aircraft on final approach to Benson called for a bearing and the bearing my operators took in degrees true from Abingdon was passed to Benson ATC by an always open landline (squawk box). Benson then plotted the bearing we gave allowing them to calculate with a fair degree of accuracy the distance the aircraft was from touchdown.
When things were quiet we VHF/DF operators at Abingdon chatted to the ATC bods at Benson and as a result were quite friendly, so much so that we occasionally went out for drinks together."
I operated in similar RV-105s at Bovingdon 1956 (providing cross bearings the North Weald) and later at Gan in 1958.
Photos of the Gan one below being improved by me with a three-inch paint brush - very time consuming ISTR!
...and as we're talking Beverleys herewith February 1958 photos of a 47 Sqn Beverley arriving at Gan with the advance party of Pakistani workers who were to start constructing the new runway. Note the Abingdon coat of arms and painted GSM annotated "Malaya" on the nose.
