Lakenheath NOTAM 15/3 PM

[slogen51]

U1508/22 - AERODROME CLOSED. FLIGHTS DURING THIS PERIOD MUST HAVE AN
OPERATIONAL NECESSITY OR BE A HIGHER HEADQUARTERS DIRECTORS MISSION
AND MUST BE APPROVED BY 48 OPERATIONS GROUP COMMANDER. 15 MAR 18:30 2022 UNTIL
15 MAR 22:00 2022. CREATED: 15 MAR 18:26 2022

Bit of a weird one?

[cjbirkett]

I saw one of these the other week when I was down. I think it’s to replace the usual morning “runway 06/24 surface condition wet” etc that gets issued every morning to reflect when they’ve no further planned flying that day.

On the day that I noticed it the daily notam (06/24 etc) had been described as being active until 22.00, however everything was down by 4ish with all the extinguishers lay down so there was obviously no more based flying planned. I was checking notams later that evening and noticed a “base closed” notam, similar to the one you’ve described above had been posted and was listed as active from about 30 minutes after the last jet had landed unto 22.00. I just presumed that they were letting other users know that the air space was technically available to them.

I have also noticed a couple for Marham appearing recently when they’ve done flying for the day being active until the posted base closing time that day.

As I say, this is only my theory, it may be something completely different and I could be way off (which wouldn’t surprise me at all!). I can’t say I’ve particularly noticed them in the past (but I’ve not necessarily been checking for them) and I’m not down that often enough to correlate whether they do coincide with when flying ends. I’m very happy to be corrected by someone with greater knowledge of how these things work.

Best wishes

[slogen51]

Another one , I think you maybe correct in your assumption that it indicates early finish to station flying

U1569/22 - AERODROME CLOSED. FLIGHTS DURING THIS PERIOD MUST HAVE AN
OPERATIONAL NECESSITY OR BE A HIGHER HEADQUARTERS DIRECTORS MISSION
AND MUST BE APPROVED BY 48 OPERATIONS GROUP COMMANDER. 17 MAR 17:15 2022 UNTIL
17 MAR 22:00 2022. CREATED: 17 MAR 17:16 2022

[AlexanderClover]

Would make sense as there was no 48th jets up after 2:30pm today. Just the AV F16s.