Which Aerodrome?
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Well done Little Cloud, it is indeed what is now Scatsta Airport on Shetland. The photograph is from the admirable Shetland Museum photo archive and is, I believe, of WWII vintage.
First developed as RAF Scatsta in 1940 as a fighter base and able to support Coastal Command Flying Boat operations. It was the most northerly base in the British Isles. Construction started on the two runways in Spring 1940. In November 1944 Scatsta was used as a support base and diversion point for Lancasters from 617 squadron, led by Wing Commander J. B. Tait, on "Operation Catechism", which bombed and sank the Tirpitz near Håkøy Island, Tromsø. After WWII the aerodrome lay dormant until 1978 when it opened as a civil airport.
According to Wickipedia Scatsta is “the fifth largest airport in Scotland, ranked by international passengers“. The airport service area has no bar (the nearest is some 3 miles away), and no taxi or bus service.
You have control.
First developed as RAF Scatsta in 1940 as a fighter base and able to support Coastal Command Flying Boat operations. It was the most northerly base in the British Isles. Construction started on the two runways in Spring 1940. In November 1944 Scatsta was used as a support base and diversion point for Lancasters from 617 squadron, led by Wing Commander J. B. Tait, on "Operation Catechism", which bombed and sank the Tirpitz near Håkøy Island, Tromsø. After WWII the aerodrome lay dormant until 1978 when it opened as a civil airport.
According to Wickipedia Scatsta is “the fifth largest airport in Scotland, ranked by international passengers“. The airport service area has no bar (the nearest is some 3 miles away), and no taxi or bus service.
You have control.
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Washington National Airport (which had Ronald Reagan pre-pended nearly 50 years after coming into service) was full-blown runway-wise the day it opened in 1941.
It has lost the short east-west runway since then. That runway was too short for large planes and planes skimmed over St Elizabeth's (mental) Hospital on the hill across the Potomac.
No comments please about DHS moving to the former mental hospital site.
It has lost the short east-west runway since then. That runway was too short for large planes and planes skimmed over St Elizabeth's (mental) Hospital on the hill across the Potomac.
Work is underway for a new, consolidated headquarters campus for the Department of Homeland Security. The new DHS headquarters will be located on the site of the old Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Southeast Washington.
Not Washington, Boston or Nashville. Go west and south.
This next clue should be a giveaway.
Two years later and one existing runway has been paralled and new "runways" have been dredged for flying boats.
This next clue should be a giveaway.
Two years later and one existing runway has been paralled and new "runways" have been dredged for flying boats.
