Cold War airfields C.1970

[jensdad]

Thanks for those recollections, Shackman. There's probably a photo in my dad's old collection of a Chinook with you in it . I seem to remember it was during the school holidays (or maybe I pretended to be ill or something) so he and I went along from our home in Newcastle to watch all the action. It was a rare treat for us to see all that nice military hardware flying around.

[Jackw106]

Who remembers these film back in the 60's

You Tube

[Doctor Cruces]

Originally Posted by FantomZorbin

I believe that Watton was being used by USAF until quite recently (within the last 5 years) for air-dropping.

Yes indeed. They regularly did HALO training there. They would drop several sticks and then land to recover the troops before heading off back to Mildenhall to have their chutes re packed (I imagine) before doing it all again later. Great sight watching the Herc go downwind at a few hundred feet down Thompson Road in Griston before landing. I remember watching the little black dots tumble from the back, rapidly gaining size until several loud "crack" noises indicated the chutes opeing really low. They used to drop Harness Packs regularly too.

It was also used as airhead for training on Stanta. There were sometimes shuttles of C130 in and out all day as well as regular training missions in there from Lyneham.

The RAF operated Harriers from there on one occasion too.

Unfortunately, it's now a housing estate and a pig farm.

[Bagheera S]

Another airfield not mentioned above that might have made it into the 70’s is RAF Chedworth, a satellite landing ground for the CFS at Little Rissington. A friend of mine and former QFI was doing circuits in Jet Provosts there in the late 60’s. A few people who have been flying in that area say JP’s were occasionally seen flying circuits at RAF Chedworth up until the long hot summer of 76.

[Shackman]

Since this has come to the top again, there's also RAF Aston Down ( I went there in a Varsity in 1968 for some reason); all I remember was a short runway and a load of Ansons there. ALthough it was still owned by MOD/RAF I think day to day running was by a gliding club that had (or was) moving in.

[safetypee]

Morton Valance;
Gloucester Aircraft, Meteor development, Javelin development, and reported Vulcan modifications - a bit short.
Now part of the M5

[Bagheera S]

Originally Posted by Shackman

Since this has come to the top again, there's also Aston Down, all I remember was a short runway and a load of Ansons there. ALthough it was still owned by MOD/RAF I think day to day running was by a gliding club that had (or was) moving in.

Aston Down was used by the CFS as a satellite until the mid seventies. Most of the kit required to support this operation was gone by the early eighties and the airfield runways sold to gliding club. The sale had some interesting caveats related to the runways which made them ideal for the gliding operation.

The main technical area was sold in the early naughties.

The last military aircraft to land there in RAF times (Late 70’s) was a Hunter that declared an emergency landing, suffered brake failure and was arrested by the South end chain link fence, luckily without anyone getting hurt.........Apart from the Lynx that had a nav system failure and dropped in to ask for directions, and there were the A10 and KC135, both of which got to about 100ft over the threshold before they realised it wasn’t Fairford.

[Warmtoast]

ISTR that Detling in Kent was an airfield, but when I can't help.
WT

[DaveReidUK]

RAF Detling - Wikipedia

[brakedwell]

We used to have a run up to Stornoway from Bovingdon with the Coastal Command Flight Ansons in 1961/2. I can’t remember who we were carrying, but we stayed at Mrs McIver’s boarding house and picked up boxes of kippers from the McIver herring smokery!