G Earth overlay for RAF airfields
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Valiants actually. 543 had reformed at Gaydon in Sep 55 and moved to Wyton in Nov 55.
I am not sure when ORP were built but I do know that ACM Sir Harry Broadhurst was made CinC in Jan 1956 to move Bomber Command into the jet age and encourage quicker generation and response. Quick reaction alert alert followed in 1962.
It is likely that the ORPs went in in the late 50s whereas the photo dates from before Nov 55.
I am not sure when ORP were built but I do know that ACM Sir Harry Broadhurst was made CinC in Jan 1956 to move Bomber Command into the jet age and encourage quicker generation and response. Quick reaction alert alert followed in 1962.
It is likely that the ORPs went in in the late 50s whereas the photo dates from before Nov 55.
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: EGBJ -> ESSB
Posts: 64
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I touched on the Google Earth missing airfields things in a couple of earlier threads in the Historic forum and over on AIX. Post-war, there was a lot of PR pilots and planes without much to do so the government had the idea do do an aerial survey of the whole of the British Isles with a view to updating all the maps. The original photos were kept under lock and key but a censored set was released to Ordnance Survey from which to update their maps. It's these photos that Google Earth is using which accounts for the missing airfields. Censorship itself was simple - take the photos and cut and paste bits of other photos over sensitive areas in such a way as to re-create the pre-war field patterns. Thus anyone looking at a pre- and post- war map would see no difference. Clouds would often appear obscuring some features like HAA sites. So with regard to Brize - Broadwell had been abandoned and was disused at the time the OS photos were produced for that area thus no need to censor it. Brize however was still operational and (based on the fact that most of the photos on GE are ~1950, not 1945) was just about to be taken by the USAAF which led to even more censorship. In fact, aerial coverage, censored or otherwise was not even released for areas around US airbases. Whether an airfield is censored or no depends largely on when the photo was taken and the status of the airfield. While the GE coverage doesn't show it, coverage of RAF Grove actually shows half the airfield cut off - a result of one sortie being taken when the airfield was sensitive and thus censored and a second later when it was OK to show it. Put the two sets together and you only get half of it. It's a shame that GE doesn't show information on the exact date of each track it uses rather than the 1945 lumping together. It would make the photos a lot more useful as well if they used the original OS series and not the badly lined up and badly Photoshoped versions.
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: London
Posts: 7,072
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
back in the 70's a certain Middle East country had large swathes flown for mapping purposes by UK companies
A couple of Security officers were in the offices in the Uk and took a knife to scrape over anything deemed "secure"
Some would cut out several square kms but others carefully erased the runways only or individual buildings - very useful
A couple of Security officers were in the offices in the Uk and took a knife to scrape over anything deemed "secure"
Some would cut out several square kms but others carefully erased the runways only or individual buildings - very useful
