Hi Tony,TonyO wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 10:36 pmJust to bring this up to date, but the whole question of whether JHC will move Apaches from Wattisham has been quietly answered in the latest edition of Soldier Magazine.
It states: "THE Army executive committee has confirmed there will be no change to the current basing of Apache attack helicopters, ending years of uncertainty for personnel and their families. As a result, 7 Regiment, Army Air Corps will stay at Middle Wallop while 3 and 4 Regiments, Army Air Corps and 7 (Aviation Support) Battalion, REME will remain at Wattisham Flying Station."
That was released in late July. A letter was sent by OC 1st Aviation Brigade to all personnel, civil servants and civilian contractors at Wattisham and presumably Middle Wallop. There is a slight change though as currently CTT training is done at Wallop and CTR at Wattisham. I'm told that there will be one more WAH-64 course under that arrangement and then both CTT and CTR will be conducted at Middle Wallop. I'm not sure but this may be the last WAH-64 course before switching to the Echo model. OC Wattisham has stated that the Echo will arrive in the UK late this year but not sure if he was referring to Wattisham specifically or not. I assume the first arrivals will have to go to Wallop for CTT training.
Although Wattisham being confirmed as the front line base was only made public in July, that outcome has been obvious for some time, as Boeing had moved in a while ago and some of the long delayed infrastructure upgrades have been started.
Gary