Around 1960 whilst living in Clapham, spent many hours during our 'half day closing' at Woolworths looking through the fence......memories of :- Short S C 1.....Comet 3 ....French Etendard....Buccaneer on catapult trials......a 'non flying' Swift painted blue on static/gate display.........went over one afternoon and saw four Valiants on the ORP when they were into dispersing the V bomber fleet all over the country...........impressive

Some interesting stuff here - anyone going to post-up some photos of all the magnificent aircraft seen at Bedford? I'd love to see some for sure!!

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but a corner of Thurleigh is also now home to many of the uplinks for satellite TV originating from the UK.

There is a video called "The last days at Bedford" or similar, unfortunately my copy's seems to have gone walk-abouts. :(

There were plans mooted recently to turn it back into an active airfield, but I think
 

Eh ? Did you make that up ? Nothing heard locally for years -it was decommissioned and sold for a reason.

All the 'Not Thurleigh' signs are long gone thanks to Standsted.

On another point, the cutting build in anticipation of extending the runway/taxiway is still in evidence: there is too much concrete and drainage arrangements to make it economic to demolish it apparently. And finally, extending it to Little Staughton ? Again are you sure: Twinwoods maybe ?

It is correct, the original requirement was for a 5 Mile long runway, but it was soon deemed unnecessary as jet engines were getting rapidly more powerful.

My piloting GA friends assure me that part of the Thurleigh runway is now available for club flying.

JF

The eastern end of the airfield was licenced earlier this year as Bedford Aerodrome (EGBF).

There are some photos (new and old) in the gallery on its Web site.

Also page 94 of the current Pooleys.

G

Mr Optimistic
 

Just to confirm that when I was working in the 13x9 and the spinning tunnel (RIP) in 1954 it was joining Little Staughton and Thurleigh that had been considered for a long runway.

Twinwood is south of Thurleigh so not in a suitable direction. The cutting to which you refer was connected with the ability to taxy aircraft to the tunnel site for use with a possible blower tunnel facility like the one at Boscombe.

I think you'll find the newly licenced section of runway is strictly PPR for Dr. Jonathan Palmer's motor racing school. He owns a Kingair based at Dunsfold and as visitors by this means are fare - paying, the airfield has to be licenced.

all very interesting
 

Thanks to all: news to me and I live one mile away. Haven't seen any GA from there, stuff seems to come from Little Staughton. The whole area is so twitchy about development with Palmer's and Yarlswood to keep us occupied, doubt that any significant change to the status has happened. Hospitality stuff for Palmer, perhaps.

5 mile runway, now that would have been something.

The Kingair is not used daily - maybe max once or twice a week.
When I closed up friday midday, it was on the ground at Fairoaks where it's used by Synergy Aviation when Jonathan doesn't need it.

Kept very quiet wasn't it? I saw nothing in either of the 2 local rags about it, nor were we sent any planning info about it, I too live about a mile from it.

There was also an ad on here for an airfield manager for them.

It's all very low profile as they wouldn't want to annoy people; they don't even have an ATZ as far as I know, and strictly PPR so they have some control over what types of aircraft can use it.

fair enough
 

Can't say I would deny or get stressed about a little local flying. After all, a thundering great Hercules stormed over the house at low height this morning, filled up half the window (erm, optically). When I first moved here there was lots of traffic (aircraft and ground) so it's all much quieter now, hence no reason to get excited about small things.

PalmerSport - Your venue - Bedford Aerodrome


Apparently the strip of land from the Wind Tunnel site to the main site, and presumably the airfield itself, is a designated 'white zone' wrt planning. This is a form of reserved status which reduces local authority control.

1983
 

I was there as a student in 1983 from about May to September in lab 13 in 115 building. I saw the Jaguar with part of a wing and a bit of bodywork missing, it also had around 10 feet of galvanized steel ladder attached to the damage, Pete F (don't suppose I should be using full names) was with me at the time. I flew on XX105 a couple of times, once ostensibly observing a problem with the DME and another time taking the head pilot's pal home to RAF Leuchars. I got the jump seat for the flight back. I also took the ferry, a Dove, to Farnborough one day to pick up some bits of coloured glass for Sam Kidd's PAPIs. (Sam is long dead and beyond being irritated by the Internet.)

This will sadden you all..

Report - RAE Thurleigh, Bedford - Nov 2011 - UK Urban Exploration Forums

Report - RAF Thurleigh, Bedfordshire. Jan 2011. - UK Urban Exploration Forums

Report - Thurleigh Airflied April 2011 (pic Heavy) - UK Urban Exploration Forums

You will find more links at the bottom of the pages.

I remember as a young avionics design engineer with Westland Helicopters doing some study work into CRT displays for the EH101 helicopter. I and three colleagues drove from Yeovil to RAE Bedford, and then flew back to Yeovilton in a 1-11 equipped with some large Smiths Industries CRT displays. This would have been around 1981/82.

So was that on XX105? Weren't they beam-penetration displays. Small by modern standards but bright and sharp compared to other things at that time. They were only fitted on the pilot side of XX105 when I was there, I think Dennis Stangroom (no idea about the spelling) was in the right seat on one of my few flights and said he preferred to use the CRTs even from the other seat.