FIDO

[nvubu]

Can't find a thread for FIDO, so thought I'd start one.

https://youtu.be/fTNs8AfF2cs

Any ideas on the airfields shown in the film? I think the one at 8:43 might be Bradwell Bay. But the one at 8:50 doesn't seem to match up with any of the ones on the list at 09:30

[DaveReidUK]

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/346x500/flying_through_fire_c30ba8b574c20b5fecf24b7ed4dd14481399ffdb .jpg

[nvubu]

Thanks for that - ordered and arrives week after next :ok:

[eckhard]

I think that it’s all been filmed at Bradwell Bay. Just from different angles. Google Earth seems to match quite well.

[PHDracing]

wow! Thanks....had never heard of it. Really clever.

[chevvron]

Some of the FIDO tracks are still evident at Blackbushe (original name used in the film)
If you look at www.blackbusheairport.proboards.com somewhere on trhe site are photos and film of an aircraft using the FIDO there taken sometime in the '50s..

[nvubu]

eckhard - Definitely agree with the first few shots of runway in that it is Bradwell Bay, but the runway at 08:50 looks to be right by the water with what looks like another coast behind it with a river running through it.

https://qtehba.am.files.1drv.com/y4mq0JLHchlbvyXe1e-o68COrkkKLCcz5efTcOoJZraLwlj2y3a6iDgd9GiOEOVJ19v5HxpIFuqjDBZ rPbko8c5fBof9RUZTAeF9_br2rjoE5htel3jom-Mx6CScGIpyXEHWk2r9-HznR7GxZoX1cuhMqP0qE4wwVycGA20uecNlH2kE6ZEjtqfyJugotsMHSwPWt eANSe4cmf1STWXkkwZiA?width=929&height=668&cropmode=none

Or am I looking at it completely the wrong way?

[chevvron]

https://qtehba.am.files.1drv.com/y4mq0JLHchlbvyXe1e-o68COrkkKLCcz5efTcOoJZraLwlj2y3a6iDgd9GiOEOVJ19v5HxpIFuqjDBZ rPbko8c5fBof9RUZTAeF9_br2rjoE5htel3jom-Mx6CScGIpyXEHWk2r9-HznR7GxZoX1cuhMqP0qE4wwVycGA20uecNlH2kE6ZEjtqfyJugotsMHSwPWt eANSe4cmf1STWXkkwZiA?width=929&height=668&cropmode=none

Or am I looking at it completely the wrong way?
Well it's definitely upside down!!
Looks like the Blackwater estuary with Osea Island in the background so looking just north of west.

[Helix Von Smelix]

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/929x668/where_7a45022f6e79feb9c6fa6c7674db04c48a1f4060.jpg

[nvubu]

Ahhhhh.......... got it now, didn't think of it being upside down, even though the map in the next bit of film is as well - I'll remember this technique for the Which Aerodrome thread :ok:

So that is Gunners Creek in the foreground, with St Peters Chapel on the shore.

[eckhard]

Gunners Creek checks. St Peter’s Chapel I can’t confirm, but it looks like a chapel on Google Earth.

[sycamore]

Wasn`t there a modern FIDO using jet engines at a Paris airport in the 70`s, or was it just a proposal..?

[DaveReidUK]

Wasn`t there a modern FIDO using jet engines at a Paris airport in the 70`s, or was it just a proposal..?

Turboclair at Orly.

[blind pew]

Worked well..produced a tunnel in the fog and slight turbulence.

[Yellow Sun]

Wasn`t there a modern FIDO using jet engines at a Paris airport in the 70`s, or was it just a proposal..?

The emplacements for the engines were also in place at Charles de Gaulle but only on 09R. I don’t know whether or not the engines were ever installed.

YS

[Fareastdriver]

IIRC there was a Fido installation at Marham up to the early sixties. Another was at Woodbridge in Suffolk. Woodbridge was one of three emergency airfields built for returning aircraft in distress with extra long runways, Manston and Carnaby being the others.

From Wiki about Woodbridge: About 30% of the emergency landings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_landing) were caused by bad weather, especially fog which could be dispersed by Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation (FIDO) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_Investigation_and_Dispersal_Operation) where up to 450,000 litres (99,000 imp gal; 120,000 US gal) of petrol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline) per hour was pumped through a system of pipes along the side of the runway and burnt to produce a wall of flames which would lift the fog. Fuel was transported to Melton railway station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melton_railway_station) before being piped to the airfield.[2] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Woodbridge#cite_note-noticeboard-2)

[XV490]

Another view of Bradwell Bay (upper left) in this shot of US Ninth Air Force 323rd BG Marauders heading north. Pre-FIDO, I'm guessing.
​​​​​​

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1613/blackwater_copy_f5e3dbe1cd390fa348239dbfa20967c3616c17c5.jpg

[old,not bold]

While working at Bentwaters in around 1999 I visited Woodbridge, then used by the Army for Apache training, and saw the FIDO installation which had never been removed, and is probably still there now.

Very large diameter pipes (10 - 20 inches? I can't remember) ran along each side of the whole length of the much wider runway than normal for WWII bomber operations. These fed the burners that created the flarepath. I didn't see any of the pumping equipment; maybe it had gone.

It was clear that the system would have used thousands of gallons of gasoline for each minute of operation. At least i think it was gasoline.

My father, a Lancaster pilot, said that others told him that landing while the FIDO was burning was more terrifying than stooging about over Berlin waiting to bomb, and I can easily imagine that it would be, especially with a damaged aircraft.

On the other hand, it worked; the flames would act as a guide, and the heat dispersed the fog just enough to enable the pilot to see where the runway was and touch down, with enormous care to maintain direction on the centreline.

[WB627]

My Dad did a FIDO landing in an Oxford at Fiskerton, he described it as "like flying into the fires of hell".

[Loose rivets]

For a while I commuted between Luton and Frinton on Sea in a Rallye Club. The crewing bod said I'd have to take my fair share of night flights so I braved the first flight home after friends said they'd make me a flare path. All was okay until I got to SW Stansted where I started to get kind of confused by what I could see. Still a long way to go and while Chelmsford, Braintree, Colchester etc., all looked okay, Clacton, Holland on Sea and my home town looked totally wrong. At one point I almost turned around. I was so used to that area, lived there, trained there, but this now just looked wrong.

When I got to my field my palls had made around 20 cans with paraffin and a rag. The light to my night vision was disabling. I was holding my arm up to shield my eyes as I landed.

[papa_sierra]

A good day out (when some sort of normality returns) is a visit to https://www.metheringhamairfield.co.uk/ where at least the pump house for the FIDO installation is on display. The airfield has gone back to agriculture but the visitor centre is a gem.

[Jetset 88]

10 Squdron's WW2 (1942 -45) base at Melbourne, near Elvington had FIDO for its Hailfaxes plus any other bombers on diversion there.

[dash7fan]

Just a question: Was FIDO installed outside the UK. If yes, may be at RAF Station Vienna Schwechat?

[Tim Zukas]

They might have tried FIDO at Eureka?Arcata, California when that was their instrument-landing experimental airport. And LAX had one-- dunno for how long, or how many times it was used. As I recall the fuel cost around $100 per minute.

[nvubu]

There is a YouTube video of FIDO in use at Arcata - can't find it now.:ugh:

[ex-cx]

Follow any very large jet down the approach (with wake turbulence separation taken into account) and there's your "jet-engine" powered FIDO..... especially if they go-around from Minimums and briefly warm all the air up for your approach.

[Tim Zukas]

The Aeroplane for 10 Dec 1948 says the Blackbushe FIDO cost 125 pounds (sterling, not avoirdupois) per minute, after it had warmed up; the issue for 3 January 1947 says fuel for the Manston FIDO cost 15000 pounds per hour. Articles in Flight: 6 March 1947 p193, 13 May 1948, 21 Nov 1952 p634, 28 Nov 1952 p670.

Flight 3 March 1949 says the LAX FIDO was complete, 6000 feet long: American Aviation says it started 2000 feet short of the end of the runway and burned 1750 gallons per minute of No 2 diesel fuel.