Kinloss glows in the dark.
 

BBC News - Investigation into radioactive contamination concerns at RAF Kinloss


Bet they can't wait..!

Imagine the low carbon footprint, if no outside lighting nor heating is required ;)

Reminds me of a certain suburb here which made a big song and dance
about Nuclear Free Zone when it was all trendy, putting up signs and
everything else.

One sign as you entered the suburb was right out the front of the Hospital
and if you looked at the hospital entrance, you would see the names of the
departments - including X Ray and Radiology !

Just proves the point that we should keep all our old aircraft and not let the engineers burn them up!!:ok:

It would take something like buckets of instant sunshine to Kinloss glow.

This sounds typical of the BBC, making environmental mountains out of molehills, deliberately hyped up to stir up the locals before any proper survey of the extent of the problem is conducted, as well as expecting the MOD to have applied today's level of safety and envoiromental risk documentation at the end of a war that had killed several million people. :ugh:

No problem, they could bottle the local water and sell it as Peckham Spring :O

When I started flying we had U/V, Red lights and Luminous markings in the cockpit. With a total electric failure at night, no standbye, one flew with your nose agains the luminous markings on the instruments.
Years ago the Standardisers insisted that helicopter pilots moved around an active dispersal with their helmets removed to prevent them walking into tail rotors. As a result of this I was awarded a lump sum (£4,500) for subsequent hearing loss.

HOW MUCH CAN I CLAIM FOR BEING SUBJECTED TO RADIOACTIVE EMISSIONS?

Nope! That would create a problem. The name 'Peckham Spring' is already trademarked, and bottles of it are on sale from the corner shop across the road from Nelson Mandela house. The shop often has a crappy yellow Reliant Regal parked outside, with a suitcase strapped to the roof .....

It could be the Findhorn Foundation spreading rumours before the pongos finally take over.

As if the amount of radium involved in even a thousand aircraft was significant. On the same proportions as squealing "drowning hazard" when they find a damp tissue...

This is surely just another idiotic example of the massive job creation scheme that is the scottish parliament and all the stupidity that goes with it. All they want is $squillions in "compensation" from the MoD for a pointless job-creation "clean-up" and a big dollop of smug self publicity for the risibly named scottish Environmental Protection Agency. And, of course, never miss an opportunity to take a cheap shot at the "English" for being the cause of all their problems. As if.

What a pointless, stupid, criminal waste of money all that doubled-up bureaucracy is in a recession when we should be reducing the parasites in government, not generating entire new species of them!

I seem to remember Basingstoke had similar problems with the site of an old Smiths Factory that produced wartime instruments.

Found it

http://www2.basingstoke.gov.uk/test/...4/00842465.PDF

"What a pointless, stupid, criminal waste of money all that doubled-up bureaucracy is in a recession"

In their favour, our MSP's are amalgamating all the current Police Services in favour of an all Scottish one with the Fire Service next in line. Do not be surprised if soon after that, the many pointless District Councils we were landed with (by the last Conservative Government) in 1997 go. With an Edinburgh Parliament, there's not a lot left for them to do.

BTW SEPA apply the Law as it applies across the UK. The issue at Kinloss is over land already sold by the MOD and doubt that required procedures were carried out to render it usable by others. This differs from the problem at Dalgety Bay in Fife where surplus WW2 aircraft had been dumped and radium particles are now being found on the beach.

As far as I am aware SEPA have known about this for years, so not sure why it's suddenly news.

It's probably "news" because someone chose to make it so. Issuing a press release to drum up media interest not too long after the Dalgety Bay story cant help but keep SEPA in the Public eye when it's Budget is under scrutiny!

Blister Agent too..?

BBC News - Chemical weapon 'risk' at RAF Kinloss in Moray

Stashes found near Cott a while back as I recall.

Trimphone glows also
 

There was also some concern about the luminescent dial that glowed green in the dark. This effect came from a small glass tube of tritium gas, which gave off beta radiation and made the dial fluoresce. Although the radioactivity was equivalent only to that given off by a wristwatch it was felt wise to withdraw this facility as public concern over radioactivity grew.
Trimphone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Wonder where all the old ones are stored.:confused:

Ah yes, the good old Trimphone! We had a couple of those back in the early 1970s.

A little known feature was that the microphone wasn't at the end of the handset, there was a transducer somewhere in the middle of the handset connected by a stethoscope-type tube to the speaking end. So if someone put their hand over the 'microphone' to prevent you hearing what they were saying to a third party, you could in fact still hear every word!

Some were sealed in drums and dumped at sea.
Some were buried at Harwell, recently they were dug up, there was a great big inflatable tent erected over the excavations whilst they were removed and sent to Sellafield, where I believe they were dismantled and the Tritium recovered.
Apparently Harwell had broken the disposal regs by burying them, and were fined by Wantage Magistrates court.

Ahhh the Trimphone, not deemed a hazard as such on its own, so what did they do when disposing of them, they put them all together, thus making them a Hazard. :D:ugh:

If they're worried about Kinloss, maybe they should start looking around Lossie as well - the number of aircraft scrapped there were considerably more than at Kinloss. Apparently the fields around the base were a great place for all the local kids to play at being bomber pilots - complete with their own bombers!

Another good site would be RAF Edzell. My father delivered brand new Halifaxs there after the war to be broken up. When he was on 202 Sqn at Aldergove using Halifaxs for Met observation in the Atlantic they would fly to Dyce; send some airman down to Edzell to get some bits; and then fly back to Aldergrove

Beeline4, we could tell you, but then we'd need to kill you.

NutLoose - My mum worked at the Basingstoke plant (then Kelvins) in 1940-41, inspecting altimeters.

Unkind people have suggested that this explains a lot, but they generally STFU when I shoot gamma rays from my eyes and set their ties on fire.

Draken 55 shows, yet again, the appalling general public understanding of what his district council (if it's not been unified yet) actually does.

He's probably bought firmly into the myth (that so many PPRuNers subscribe to) that tea drinking and doing bugger all else sits high on their work day duties.

Doctor C

Until 1974 we had an efficient well run Unitary County Council for Ayrshire. It was abolished by the Conservative Government and replaced by a number of District Councils responsible for some functions with others becoming the responsibility of the Ayr Division of the huge Strathclyde Region.

In 1997 the District and Regional Council's were in turn abolished by the then Conservative Government. In Ayrshire they were replaced by three Unitary District Councils. Not long after, Devolution meant we got the Parliament in Edinburgh.

I am not questioning what needs to be done just where and how many it takes to do it! Is that so wrong?

BBC News - Findhorn sand dune radiation testing begins

How do you decontaminate as much real estate potentially, as bad as this without spending more money than it would cost to close the place?

?

Large parts of the WWII airfield were sold off after the war and other bits have been 'sliced' off since. The area closest to Findhorn was sold to the Findhorn Foundation - home to the local hippy and anti-nuclear community. I'm sure some lawyers will be preparing a case against the MoD for 'past actions' even as we speak. This issue would seem to underline why the MoD doesn't sell off bases anymore - the legislation requiring ALL contamination be removed from the land would make it too costly.

Rather like Greenwich (London) used to do.

Pity no-one told them about the baby reactor (for training engineers) in the Naval College! ......:E

:D:D:D:D:D

Far, far too many layers of self perpetuating bureaucratic non-sense in this country.

I hear it became all the brighter when you left.:ok:

Loved the place, little bit of heaven on Earth, especially for outdoor sports.

Wow ! Upset of Tumbridge Wells, you even managed to get a pop at the Scottish Government and SEPA out of this. Did somobody drop you on the head as a baby!:p

So the announcements that they're selling the airfield at Wyton are wrong then? In which case, why is there a survey team out there right now, drilling holes all over the airfield? :confused:

maybe the 'survey team' at Wyton are assessing the contamination prior to the actual sale? As this report says (Land Contamination: Technical Guidance on Special Sites: MoD Land R&D Technical Report P5-042/TR/01):

"Many MoD sites were closed and decommissioned to standards of the day which may not have been consistent with current standards. Such sites may still be within MoD ownership. Historically surveys were conducted which concentrated on live munitions on the surface, but such surveys may not have addressed fully the potential risks from residual raw materials or from buried munitions.
A survey of an Armament Depot revealed that the majority of process buildings had been closed without decommissioning the plant, which was found to be contaminated with explosive residues. Soils surrounding the process buildings were found to contain explosive residues. At the time of investigation, this site was in MoD ownership."

Wonder which dept picks up the bill for any clean-up :ugh:

In Scotland, there are only two, the Scottish Government, and the local Councils (All Unitary). I would argue that some of the councils are too small to be effective, but equally a lot of their functions (waste management, street lighthing etc) would not work if managed on a national basis.

Prior to the 76 reorganisation things were still two-tier (Lots of little Burgh councils doing things and duplicating management and admin).

As for SEPA, they do some of the functions that the EA do in England, but also a lot of the pollution and contamination things that are done by ~ 200 local Councils in England (Economies of scale again)

Anyway, back on topic, the problem with radium is when behind glass in instruments as it wasn't going to be ingested. It is especially hazardous when ingested/absorbed.as it accumulates in the bones.

Radium | Radiation Protection | US EPA

Guys no need to get in a tizzy about this it is all quite simple and regular. Before any agency (MoD, industrial or otherwise) ceases operations on a particular site and sells it on it has to undertake a process called remediation. Upon disposal the remediation certificate simply provides assurances that the land has been cleared of any toxic or harmful products or substances arising from its previous use. You would not want your son, grandson etc digging up an old bomb fuze while playing in the garden on the new housing estate now would you. So, all rather sensible in the end.

If Wyton has been sold and is currently in the hands of a developer then you will find its remediation process was rather straightforward with no real nasties being found. Simples!

TJ - no tizzy m8, it's just that Sandy P simply stated "...the MoD doesn't sell off bases anymore..." and I was querying that as a fact. Perhaps I could have done a clearer job of that. :\

The airfield at Wyton has not been sold, yet.

No worries fella, wasn't taking a dig sorry if it came across like that. From what I recall when I was down in those parts the Wyton airfield had alreday been partly sold/leased - lots of civil engineering sundries in storage or something on the airfield. What about the old HQ Logs site are the IPTs still in the pavillions?

TJ - most/all moved out AFAIK. The new Pathfinder building is very impressive though and a great aid for student/AEF pilots when trying to locate the airfield from afar. Lots of dark blue & camo green uniforms invading the place now too. At least they painted the 'berra so they wont replace it with a tank or something else similarly inappropriate & the mess has a nice set of aviation pictures in it still. :ok:

Airfield definitely not sold.....yet.