G Earth overlay for RAF airfields

[sisemen]

Some time ago someone posted a link which enabled an overlay of all RAF establishments since year dot to be overlayed on G Earth. I had it on my old computer but not on my new one. Searches on PPRuNe have revealed nothing.

Can anyone remember it and/or point me in the right direction?

[Ali Barber]

Can't find it on PPRuNe, but the first post here might be what you're looking for.

RAF Stations in Great Britain - Google Earth Community (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=823782&site_id=1#import)

[Heathrow Harry]

Secret Bases • WWW.SECRET-BASES.CO.UK © 2011 (http://www.secret-bases.co.uk/)

has I think a Google earth file for ALL sorts of odds and sodds - old Thor bases, current MI6 intercept stations, POL depots in and out of use

[sisemen]

Thanks Ali - that's the one.

[Pontius Navigator]

Interesting to see RAF Humberston. You can make out a set of foundations in a field; it looks like a hutted camp.

Don't take the positions as gospel however. RAF Wainfleet is misplotted. The plot shows the 1990s site after it moved from Wainfleet to Friskney. RAF Holbeach is some 3 miles out too.

[GIATT]

Slightly off topic, but looking at any map of the UK it seems that one is never very far from a WWII airfield. They seem to have been stamped onto the landscape with a giant rubber stamp almost willy nilly.

How long did it take from start to finish to build all these airfields? It seems like a Herculean effort given the length of the war.

[sisemen]

Not quite sure of build time but one interesting fact emerges. For hardcore for the runways etc they used the rubble from bomb damage in the cities. Subsequently when the airfields were gradually torn up after the war the hard core and smashed concrete was used for hardcore for the motorway programme.

Waste not, want not. Thanks Adolf. :}

[StopStart]

Ok this is possibly a Storm force 10 bordering on violent storm 11 piece of geekery however whilst perusing the Google Earth 1940s aerial photos layer I noticed that RAF Brize Norton wasn't anywhere to be found. If the internet is to be believed (and lets be fair here, it's never been wrong before) Brize was built in 1937. The aerial pic shows the neighbouring RAF Broadwell (43-47) but no Brize. I can't see an obvious join in the imagery so I can only assume it must've been taken up in an early Rapture. Any other slightly more far fetched ideas as to where Brize is/was....?

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h64/judgesaw/bzn.jpg

[sisemen]

A triumph of photographic deception! I suspect that the censors have drawn fields etc over the airfield in order to confuse the wily Hun and just forgot to take the overlay off.

[Pontius Navigator]

According to my source, which predates the internet, Brize certainly opened in 1937. It had permanent accommodation and two 2000 yard runways of concrete and woodchip by 1944. It belonged to 23 Gp and was a heavy glider conversion unit.

Clearly the photo, taken in 1945, was after the site was 'cleared' as part of the chemtrail introduction and the laying of the chem pipes around the base for the US. Cleared, as Siseman says, meant artful camouflage to deter Russian satellites that might have been built in secret during the war.

PS

In case anyone thinks it is a much earlier photograph, RAF Broadwell was not opened until 1943.

[sisemen]

Certainly brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "secret Oxon air base" :}

[StopStart]

Hmmm indeed. Further perusal of the area reveals yet more disappearances. In fact, having erased almost everywhere I think they just got bored by the time they got to Broadwell. Should you have trouble sleeping then close inspection of sites like Moreton In Marsh, Little Riz and Enstone does reveal some rubbing out of runways and artful drawing in of trees and hedges.

I need to get out more :hmm:

[BEagle]

Maybe it's because it was deemed OK to show disused aerodromes such as Broadwell and Akeman Street (near Leafield), but not active ones?

Maps of the period often just include the word 'airfield' and that's about all. One step up from 'Here be dragons', I guess?

I wonder whether the PIs had a suitable bunch of anonymous countryside photos which they just snipped into shape and stuck over the actual imagery? The aerial map of Keevil looks rather odd, for example.

[StopStart]

That sounds sensible - there does seem to have been some early cut and paste going on around Keevil....

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h64/judgesaw/kee1.jpg


Interestingly (quotes may be added around that word as required) there doesn't seem to have been the same strict censorship applied to the aerial pics taken on the other side of the country. Someone did spill coffee on Wattisham though....

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h64/judgesaw/watt.jpg

[Pontius Navigator]

Maybe it's because it was deemed OK to show disused aerodromes such as Broadwell and Akeman Street (near Leafield), but not active ones?

Maps of the period often just include the word 'airfield' and that's about all. One step up from 'Here be dragons', I guess?

I wonder whether the PIs had a suitable bunch of anonymous countryside photos which they just snipped into shape and stuck over the actual imagery? The aerial map of Keevil looks rather odd, for example.

In 1964 many airfields were indeed marked simply as BEagle says. As a Nav Rad we used airfields and hangars as aiming points and our bible, IIRC, was SD892. This secret tome was a survey of every airfield in the UK and its extensibility for the new modern jets. It gave the maxium runway extensions together with the infrastructure impact - divert A15 around Scampton - demolish farm house etc. They had surveyed all airfields including the wartime emergency ones.

Then in later 60s we got new ordnance survey maps and the complete airfield details, including SSAs, was printed. We thought at the time that OS had got on to the airfields when they went in to C&M for upgrades.

As the mapping updates was ongoing we still needed SD892. An amendment came out that removed many wartime airfields and would have reduced its value to us if incorporated. Against all the rules we simply filed the amendment and retained the out of date copy.

PIs had a suitable bunch of anonymous countryside photos which they just snipped into shape and stuck over the actual imagery

Two points here. A lot of high definition Cold War imagery of Russia in the 60s had been from German archives. Many were then clearly enhanced with pen and ink etc, ie updated from unattributable sources.

Later JARIC also produced fix point overlays for the TSR2 SLAR. These were masterpieces of modelling. Fabrics, pipe cleaners etc were manipulated and then oblique photographs taken to give as accurate an impression of a SLAR fix-point image. If you think about it, this was the ultimate inflexible navigation aid.

[BEagle]

Public access to wartime mapping was restricted by the Directorate of Military Survey in the early 1970s after concern was expressed at the likelihood of illegal immigrants being flown in 'under the radar' from the continent. Indeed, in November 1971 a quick-witted farmer rammed a Cherokee at Kimbolton aerodrome which had been flown in by a Syrian pilot - it contained 4 Indian and 1 Pakistani passengers. The Syrian had tried to bribe the farmer after trying to run off, but the farmer went for him with a spanner....

If you see an aeronautical map of the early 1950s, it looks as though someone has fired a shotgun at the map of East Anglia - there were well over 100 aerodromes! When I flew my PPL qualifying cross-country back from Ipswich to Cranfield, there were about a dozen aerodromes within 3 miles of my track on one side or another - and I was advised not to use them as fixes due to the ease of mis-identification.

[ExAscoteer]

Later JARIC also produced fix point overlays for the TSR2 SLAR. These were masterpieces of modelling. Fabrics, pipe cleaners etc were manipulated and then oblique photographs taken to give as accurate an impression of a SLAR fix-point image. If you think about it, this was the ultimate inflexible navigation aid.


A bit like the old Ecko 190 Radar predictions for the Dominie then. :)

[Pontius Navigator]

a dozen aerodromes within 3 miles of my track on one side or another - and I was advised not to use them as fixes due to the ease of mis-identification.

Stradishall had an airfield at the end of each runway. - Wratting Common, Chedburg, Ridgewell, and Newmarket.

At 24,000 the pilot of the meatbox in a high bank turn said where is Stradishall Nav? It was a safe bet when I said down there (100%) 10 o'clock which was a fair guess (80%) but a racing certainty given odds of 1:5.

PS, Found provenance of the 1945 photos. One has Ordnance Survey and added names and positioning data and nearby the imagery date is 1/1/45.

[ZH875]

The 1945 image of Wyton throws up a few anomalies, if the main runway was extended in the 50's for the 'V' bombers, why is it the same length as 1945, and also what looks like 4 Canberra's are parked on the disused runway to the left of the (1945) V bomber dispersal where the Canberra OCU operated from.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/ZH875/2011-05-23_144548.png

[sisemen]

While the G Earth says it's from 1945 it's actually a much later photo. The hardstandings and runway extension (although ORP not yet built) are the standard V Force pattern and the aircraft are Canberras. Suspect it was in the period when the base was being upgraded for Victors.

[izod tester]

Not a Google Earth overlay, but this site, Aerial Views Of UK Airports & Airfields (http://www.content-delivery.co.uk/aviation/airfields/) links to the overhead views of each airfield.

[Pontius Navigator]

Valiants actually. 543 had reformed at Gaydon in Sep 55 and moved to Wyton in Nov 55.

I am not sure when ORP were built but I do know that ACM Sir Harry Broadhurst was made CinC in Jan 1956 to move Bomber Command into the jet age and encourage quicker generation and response. Quick reaction alert alert followed in 1962.

It is likely that the ORPs went in in the late 50s whereas the photo dates from before Nov 55.

[HighTow]

I touched on the Google Earth missing airfields things in a couple of earlier threads in the Historic forum and over on AIX. Post-war, there was a lot of PR pilots and planes without much to do so the government had the idea do do an aerial survey of the whole of the British Isles with a view to updating all the maps. The original photos were kept under lock and key but a censored set was released to Ordnance Survey from which to update their maps. It's these photos that Google Earth is using which accounts for the missing airfields. Censorship itself was simple - take the photos and cut and paste bits of other photos over sensitive areas in such a way as to re-create the pre-war field patterns. Thus anyone looking at a pre- and post- war map would see no difference. Clouds would often appear obscuring some features like HAA sites. So with regard to Brize - Broadwell had been abandoned and was disused at the time the OS photos were produced for that area thus no need to censor it. Brize however was still operational and (based on the fact that most of the photos on GE are ~1950, not 1945) was just about to be taken by the USAAF which led to even more censorship. In fact, aerial coverage, censored or otherwise was not even released for areas around US airbases. Whether an airfield is censored or no depends largely on when the photo was taken and the status of the airfield. While the GE coverage doesn't show it, coverage of RAF Grove actually shows half the airfield cut off - a result of one sortie being taken when the airfield was sensitive and thus censored and a second later when it was OK to show it. Put the two sets together and you only get half of it. It's a shame that GE doesn't show information on the exact date of each track it uses rather than the 1945 lumping together. It would make the photos a lot more useful as well if they used the original OS series and not the badly lined up and badly Photoshoped versions.

[Heathrow Harry]

back in the 70's a certain Middle East country had large swathes flown for mapping purposes by UK companies

A couple of Security officers were in the offices in the Uk and took a knife to scrape over anything deemed "secure"

Some would cut out several square kms but others carefully erased the runways only or individual buildings - very useful