Here's an aerodrome with a surprising history:

https://i.imgur.com/WeGvLcj.jpg

London/Ashford Lympne?

Nice try chevvron, but not Kent. The fruit trees in the orchards in the picture would not survive in the Garden of England, even in normal weather! ;)

Don't think so - I don't remember there being a major road /railway running "NE-SW" on "pseudo west" (actually south) side of Lympne

Hmmm - orchard... warm.... flat..... rectangular fields............ history..........

Orange County John Wayne???

Nothing to do with The Duke, but I’m sure those are orange trees.

Off to bed now. I’ll check in about 1700Z.

Some time later:

https://i.imgur.com/6wmsrBA.jpg

"Elvis' missiles have left the building" ;)

https://i.imgur.com/BFIy2eZ.png

Ahhh Elvis = Hound Dog = N American = Downey California

HH has it - Vultee Field, Downey California

I stumbled on this when looking at a map of old airfields in the LA Basin. The first type produced here was the Vultee V-1:

https://i.imgur.com/SZfmze5.jpg

and the last was the Space Shuttle:

https://i.imgur.com/fjK2UUg.jpg

In between, besides the Hound Dog Mach 2 cruise missile, Downey produced lots of BT-13s, lots of Vengeances and the Apollo CSM.

In October 1941, there was a backlog of BT-13s, due to late delivery of fuel pumps. The was a mass-departure of 123 BT-13s in 32 minutes, taking off in threes, at 15 second intervals!

https://i.imgur.com/RVGXsZv.png

Here's the Vengeance production line. This one is especially for Danny:

https://i.imgur.com/Lr1W6TZ.jpg

Downey has almost completely disappeared. The only remnant is part of the Vultee offices, including the Art Deco entrance:

https://i.imgur.com/xIN0K95.png

HH has control.

Thanks - good challenge - and a very interesting history to the place

Sad that everyone was laid off/moved in the 90's...

Anyway here's another place you might find orange groves


https://www.pprune.org/members/32618...ure947-001.jpg

Vultee Field
 

The runways were never very long and when the Shuttle was built, they were gone.

I wondered how the Shuttles were delivered. It turns out they were taken by road to Edwards AFB. That’s 110 miles away!

CORRECTION

Further research indicates that although a lot of Shuttle work was carried out at Downey, including building a mock-up, final assembly of components, made by many subcontractors, was at the Palmdale plant. This is only 36 miles from Edwards.

Dear Heathrow Harry, It has been over 24-hrs, and no challenge is visible.

Bri,

Blame me and not HH. I posted a follow up. See HH’s challenge above my post.

The oranges reference made me think of Seville, but I'm pretty sure it isn't that fine city, so I'll take a stab at Zaragoza?

https://www.pprune.org/members/32618...46-5862609.jpg

right part of the world......

Talavera la Real Air Base ?

Actually it's Aeropuerto de Badajoz withte Air base attached on the other side of the runway ...

Over to Dook......

Apologies. OneDrive is not working.

OH

TinyPic is though.

http://i63.tinypic.com/2rha1qt.jpg