Should have kept Lyneham Open
 

https://www.forces.net/news/raf-briz...closed-repairs
Brize Closed as runway appears to have melted, 1 Voyager at Mildenhall.

1 of the White Tails and 1 Voyager at EGNX

ZH871 Hercules C.4 calling RRR5711 diverted to Northolt, arriving there at 22:33 on the 19th from Nice. As of the evening of the 20th, this C-130 remains at Northolt.

Wrong type of warm weather for the tar - a bit like British Rail "wrong type of snow" in 1991 !

Ever heard of concrete? Works wonders in hot and cold climes....

Maybe use Fairford as happened in 1974 and again since then.

Lyneham is of course still open, although a Voyager landing there might have given a bit of a shock to the REME trainees busy practising recovering tanks on the runway!

Yep as I was there yesterday


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5055a3e48.jpeg

cheers

A stupid situation isn't it... and the fact they are having to shove them into civilian airports just makes the whole of it even more farcical, to not have the capability to move the fleet elsewhere is ludicrous. Take out the Brize runway and they are screwed.

If only someone had told them that putting all the AT assets into a station with only one runway could cause problems. We are all culpable for not doing so.

History Never Repeats
 

I vaguely recall a couple of Hercs visiting Brize to 'dry run' the concept, just before the closure of Lyneham. Of course, one landed Gear Up on the runway, and stopped :)

Base Commander bragged that the runway was still used, as a C-17 flew off the remaining length. Where to? To Lyneham, to fill up with fuel and cargo before continuing onwards.

On the positive side, handy to know that a request to transit the Brize zone is unlikely to be refused at the moment...

It wasn’t too difficult to foresee! I'm sure the issue was discussed when RAFLyneham was withdrawn from use.I don’t really see the point. Seeing as Lyneham is still an MOD establishment, just occupied by the Army now. So what was actually saved. An embarrassingly strange decision that creates operational risks and lack of flexibility.

Yup, seems like a few have cottoned on to this and are making use of the short-cut.

I know its hot but its been hotter over the past few years, so why this problem now? Didn't they do some work to the runway recently?

Anyone trying to land at Lyneham now is in for a rude awakening !! Runway has many "buildings" on it, and the grass to the North and West of the runway has all been replaced by solar panels !!

Apart from the diverted aircraft,how many others are actually stuck at Brize until the runway reopens?

I believe quite a few people at Lyneham did mention it including the local Wiltshire MP. I was rather severely told off by the then Stn Cdr for not being an ‘advocate of the move’ to Brize. As a Gp Capt he was required to be one although he told a marginally different tale at his dining-out night.

The birds are coming home to roost now though.

Apologies for the slight thread drift here.
In todays Daily Telegraph is a report on a statement by ACM Sir Mike Wigston that the RAF needs to 'relearn skills not practiced for 30 years'. A new series of exercises called Exercise Agile Stance will see fighter jets dispersed to civilian airfields or even motorways to make them harder for the Red Forces to destroy. I can't wait to see them at Norwich, although don't come on Mondays as they don't allow circuit training (grass cutting in progress!)

Yup, they could have had two molten runways instead of one! Can't beat concrete eh?

Err just noticed that Fairford still seems to be open. Shirley that would be a suitable alternative? I imagine the facepalms at Brize when they hear this news - "Goddamandbuggeration Why didn't someone think of this?!"

S'funny coz the Reds flew over my house on Sunday on their return from Silverstone. I'd automatically assumed they were running in to Brize, then just found on they'd been operating from EGVA.

Didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read this. Can't work out wjy an important MOD base put "out of action" by a few hot Days? Beggers belief.

Take Khartoum for example, one of the honest places on earth, they Don't have this sought of trouble with their single runway. There is always Heathrow to use I guess. Makes a "valid" military target if the military start using civil airports.

Bean counters win every time. Come the next war, and the enemy will win, in no small part due to the bean counters.

Oh yes the Herc wheels up landing :), they'd been doing circuits and bumps for a while and forgot the gear, I had the deep joy of being the Eng Ops controller on the day it happened, mind you it was a lovely landing smack down the middle and I did have the fun of using the bat phone to call OC Eng and let him know!

Sone of you are not taking this sticky problem seriously enough....

Jack

I did......on many occasions, both to the CATARA Team and to the VSOs of the day. Driven by cost savings - nothing else!

As this a a Rumour network, a few of us were led to believe that a paper written by a navigator on 101 sqn was spotted by a Bean Counter/Treasury and then put forward. Unfortunately the "idiots" refused to accept most arguments against and carried on regardless, obviously common sense ( single runway being the most obvious reason not to pursue this farcical idea ) within many officials mind's when mentioning saving money. Well said originator went far, became Air Attache at Washington in later years!

like strategic planning for instance...............

In fairness to Snake, it is unlikely that he came up with the idea, but rather staffed the paper for someone else.

Whilst I would love to agree, the old Planning Rounds appear to have been replaced by yearly (and often more frequently) desperate savings measures makes coherency almost impossible. That process, mixed with tribal in-fighting for scarce assets in ordeer to protect cap badge etc, constantly changing contract specs that attract cost and time over-runs, and vortex of pet projects designed to get each VSO noticed within his or her 2-year in each tenure, is a recipe for poor planning at the Strategic and muddled execution at the Operational levels. Naturally, the people at the sharp end muddle through gallantly to cover failings. I would contend that it is not much different now than 30 years ago though....

I seem to remember visiting the Vindolanda Museum on Hadrians Wall and reading a parchment by a Roman Soldier about people at the sharp end muddling through and keeping the show on the road whilst senior officers caused chaos and confusion whilst trying to climb the greasy pole.

I see a resumé for his ? current role? describes him as having been "aide de comps" to HMQ!

A400 airborne from BZN a little while ago, runway serviceable or did it use the grass? !!

Isn't REME Lyneham a different budget, so handing it over to the Army saved RAF budgets, even though the overall cost to MoD was the same? (Or possibly more at the end of the day!)

The MOD (RAF) saved circa £7m pa in direct operating costs by closing Lyneham & dodging the repair bill to bring the real estate up to scratch after many years of (deliberate?) neglect.

The MOD (Army) spent circa £1b bringing the real estate up to scratch and converting it for the REME training school.

Different budgets? Or just one taxpayer funded pie? Discuss...

let’s also not forget the money the MOD have made from selling Prince Phillip Barracks in Bordon sur le Merde for the building of a new eco slum that has offset some of the money.

Is it cancelled? Sorry, thought this was a golf thread.

It's hard to imagine any kind of operating risk assessment or OPEVAL for Brize Norton not starting with;

1. Runway unusable - present options.

In fairness, it is a relatively new station...

I thought I was the only one..... :uhoh:

Ken,

The cost of the move (Project Hercules) was considerably south of £200M, a little adrift from your figure. Incidentally, Lyneham sits within the Defence College of Technical Training, which itself is part of the Air Top Level Budget, so infra costs still fall to Air, not Land, Command. The major savings were in the disposal of both Arborfield and Borden.