Phantoms at Leeming?
 

During a search related to the What Aerodrome thread, I was looking at Leeming on Google Earth.

Apart from the poorly parked Hawk ;), I noticed a couple of ghostly white swept-wing aircraft images just to the east. Specifically, 54°17'52.99"N, 1°31'31.59"W and 54°17'52.52"N, 1°31'30.07"W.

Can someone tell me what they are?

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...42/leeming.jpg

Look like a brace of F-4's to me

I do agree that they look like F-4s but unless it was Luftwaffe on a landwaway I don't see how they would appear on a Google Earth image as they are not more than about 3 years old, maximum. Do Luftwaffe still operate F-4s BTW?

There are (were?) real ones around as decoys. Could these ones be painted - so that when the big bad WP look through their 1980s satellites they think we have some real fighters?

Their is an F4 parked to the west of the main runway

see here http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=54.28....8&r=0&src=ggl

But look at the shadows from the buildings and refuel tankers, and the shadow that is missing from the F4s!

Sorry, I was trying to be clever with my title - "phantoms" as in "ghostly".

As Tiger Mate says, there are no shadows, so these are not aircraft and they certainly wouldn't fool a photo interpreter.

I was wondering if the images (and certainly the left one does look like an F4) are actually painted on the tarmac, or if they have been added to the image after the fact.

And while we are talking about Leeming, what are all those new hangars for on the north side? Also, spot the Lightning.

Stealth bombers, of course! :}

Regards,
BH.

The mystery aircraft is a Javelin Mk7

Mystery aircraft looks like a Javelin - I think there was one on the gate some years back?

India Four Two, do you mean the hardened shelters? They were built around the early 1990s and were part of a major upgrade as I recall.

Yes the Javelin was there when it was being repainted - its back on its plinth now. Ditto, which 'new hangars' do you mean?

Yes. Was this part of a wartime front-line dispersal plan? I thought Leeming was a training base.

Was a training base, then reactivated as an F3 wing. Leeming homepage

Late 1980's, because as a young qualified surveyor ES was brought in to sort out some of the problems. Cynical opinion received as hear say from the development team was that the contractor bodged the job but was politically too well connected for there to be any comeback. Whatever the truth, close up the finish was terrible and the, seemingly contractor caused, defect with one of the sewage holding tanks was 'memorable'.:yuk:

ES, were you connected with the PSA per chance?

Does it show? Did six years until I saw the inevitable and left before it struck the rocks.

Only very slightly! I clung to the flotsam and am still there in a manner of speaking :}

What a great thread. I served at RAF Leeming in 1973/4 as an airframe bod on 3FTS. The Google earth shots really do bring back the memories. I would tend to agree that the 2 Phantom Phantoms don't really have the right aspect of real airframes and that they appear to have been painted onto the concrete, wonder why, surely the service had enough scrap airframes to spare for decoys by then.

As a bit of a footnote to the moderator, I have to say this is my favourite forum - attended by true and total gentlemen. It is a pleasure to read such a wealth of experience and knowledge without the verbal battering experienced on many of the other forums. Great stuff !

So there were survivors! There were rumours passing around those of us who took to the lifeboats, but nothing confirmed or certain. Up this part of the world those who remained to end perished in their jobs to join the famous Club Six and Two Thirds. Me? I was last seen paddling away in my liferaft when the rocks were at least 18 months away...