5 mile taxiway?

[Brewster Buffalo]

I have a book written in late 1980s about RAF Woodbridge and Bentwaters when the USAF 81st TFW was resident.

The book says that although the bases are five miles apart they are linked by a long taxiway..

The resolution on Google Earth is too low to see much but MultiMap does show a track running North through the Forest past Claypond Cottage from about half way along the Woodbridge runway. This track eventually joins up with a minor road running North towards the Western End of Bentwaters


www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=52.0991&lon=1.4057&scale=25000&icon=x (http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=52.0991&lon=1.4057&scale=25000&icon=x)
Post Code IP12 2XX

Is this the taxiway??

[DH106]

Hmmmm - interesting.
The airfields don't look to be 5 miles apart tho, looks like 2 to 2 1/2 miles as the crow flies. So a 5 mile taxiway would have to be pretty twisty & non-direct. So maybe that track isn't the old taxiway

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!]

maybe there's a dog-leg to get around a water hazard

[con-pilot]

My father was based at Woodbridge RAF Station from 1960 through 1963. We lived for the last year on Bentwaters RAF Station (we lived off base for the other two years) and I started my flying lessons with the Aero Club that was at Woodbridge RAF Station.

At that time there was no taxiway connecting the bases. There could have been one built after I moved, however, I doubt it because a few years ago I flew over the two bases and didn't notice any five mile long taxiway.

[potcivvy]

Having spent many happy training sorties at Woodbridge on the mighty Lynx from Wattisham I can tell you that I have never seen a taxi-way linking the two airfields.

That said, I probably wouldn't have noticed anyway given that all of my attention would have been devoted to trying to hit the aiming point after yet another rubbish autorotation!

[BEagle]

When real aircraft flew from Wattisham, Woodbridge and Bentwaters back in the 1980s, there was no such taxiway.

[con-pilot]

And in the 60s.

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/fighter/f101a-6.jpg

:ok:

[ZH875]

Nothing like a 5 mile taxiway on the OS Map of that area.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/ZH875/BentWood.jpg(C) Ordnance Survey

[Brewster Buffalo]

Thanks for the copy map..the track I was referring to starts just to the left of the W in the "Woodbridge Airfield" label and runs North marked by a line of green crosses.

I going to have a look at larger scale map and see what I can find..

[ZH875]

Looks like the distance between them is just over 2 miles, also has an interesting gradient.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/ZH875/BentWood_1.jpg

Maybe, it was built for the Aliens who used Rendlesham Forest!:p

[AngloPepper]

I wonder if the author got his airfields mixed up? When the National Aeronautical Establishment was being planned, there was intended to be a taxiway of about 4 miles length joining the airfields at Twinwood and Bedford (Thurleigh). They started building the taxiway and then (as was typical with British aviation in the late forties), erm, gave up. Part of the taxiway is now part of a public road.

[gruntie]

That "line of green crosses" looks to be nothing more than the remains of a lane truncated when the airfield was constructed, and left as a byway. If you extend your multimap reference and look to the south of the runway, you can see evidence of the old right-of-way near Red Lodge.

There was a 4-mile pipeline (dunno where from) to supply the wartime FIDO installation. Maybe that started the rumour.

[chevvron]

I once heard about this taxiway, and the person telling me claimed it was in a tunnel!
Anyway the taxiway linking Luqa and Hal Far in Malta (via another airfield who's name I can't remember; not Qrendi)was probably about this length so it's not a new concept.

[Brewster Buffalo]

Nothing found on the larger scale Ordnance plans that looks like a taxiway.

I wonder as Woodbridge was built as an emergency landing field whether aircraft that had crashed and needed extensive repair were taken to Bentwaters along this taxiway?? (and now its disappeared in the trees)

Can't really see how much use such a taxiway could have been to the USAF?

Here is a nice picture whilst I investigate further..

http://bentwaters.org/images/rafwb/RAF-Woodbridge-Aerial-2003.jpg

[green granite]

I wonder if the author got his airfields mixed up? When the National Aeronautical Establishment was being planned, there was intended to be a taxiway of about 4 miles length joining the airfields at Twinwood and Bedford (Thurleigh). They started building the taxiway and then (as was typical with British aviation in the late forties), erm, gave up. Part of the taxiway is now part of a public road.
The other thing they were going to do was build a runway which linked little staughton with thurleigh, creating a 5 mile long runway, this too was discontinued and they decided that if it cant get airbourne in 2 miles there was a problem.

[con-pilot]

Brewster, thank you for that picture. That really brings back some old memories.:ok:

Mig 15, if memory serves me correctly that short taxiway you are referring to was used for 'hot' weapons removal area. I could be wrong, it has been a really long time. Over 40 years.:eek:

[JW411]

chevvron: The taxiway between Luqa and Hal Far went via the airfield at Safi.

[Brewster Buffalo]

I have the answer courtesy of the Bentwaters Aviation Society :ok:

"No there was not ever a taxiway linking the bases, although after speaking
to several people who worked on the bases, they said that they did have a
plan if one base was out of action for any reason to lay metal psp tracking
through the forest to link the bases on a temporary basis only, to allow
transfer of aircraft to the functioning base.

Although they never did any test runs of this, so how well it would have
worked or not is open to question, and also the chance of one base being
hit, without the other one was probably unlikely.

There are also various stories of a tunnel between the bases, but again no
evidence of this has ever been found, and it certainly does not show up on
the plans for the base."

[Hilico]

I was at Woodbridge last weekend and will be next weekend, and have been there several weekends each year for the last half-decade - NO TAXIWAY. There is solid forest all the way round the northern part.

Maybe I should post some pictures, if I ever took any.

[enicalyth]

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c220/enicalyth/5mitaxiway.jpg

Well done ZH even tho your plot looks like the extended centreline of FHAW without the hump and steep initial upslope!

How do these ideas see light of day I wonder? :D

There is however an underground railway all the way from Buckingham Palace to Corsham and a secret stash of steam locomotives housed in Boxhill because steam locomotives do not suffer from EMP in a nuclear strike. And you thought they all went to scrap, eh?

[Kieron Kirk]

The steam locos are held not at Boxhill but at Box Tunnel!

You would never get a steam loco round the zig-zag! And what would the National Trust have to say about the desecration of Boxhill?

[diginagain]

The steam locos are held not at Boxhill but at Box Tunnel!



Behind the big steel door, southern face of the tunnel, just inside the east portal. It's all true, I kid you not, you can just see it, and feel the train move as it runs over the trailing points on the Down line.

[Kieron Kirk]

The mention of Boxhill to us "southerners" brings images of the North Downs,ice cream picnics at the "stepping Stones" and large numbers of leather clad motorcyclists on a Sunday afternoon!

Thank god for I K Brunel.

[Tempsford]

I think you will find that the steam engines you mention were scrapped, but only in the last few years. Use Corsham on Google and there is an interview with the the guys who scrapped them. Bloody shame, there were allegedly 160 of em.

Temps.

[diginagain]

Tempsford

Ah, but that's what they want you to think.

[Tempsford]

If only that were true.....