Ex RAF Airfields and the current users

[Garysb]

RAF Lindholme now 2 prisons
RAF Kirmington Airport Humberside
RAF North Killingholme - Trading estate
RAF Elsham Wolds - Ditto
Sandtoft - Cars, tiles and an airstrip!
Bawtry - Gone
Hibalstow Parachute centre
Faldingworth - Who knows all sorts of stuff
Kirton in lindsey - Raf only just
Hemswell - Grain and Sunday market
Goxhill -not strictly RAF derelict

Gary

[andyxh558]

Raf Carnaby, now an industrial estate but some of the runway exists

Raf Gatow, now the Luftwaffen museum

Woodford, probably a housing estate soon

[urkles]

RAF Leiston - caravan park & farmland
RNAS Aldeburgh - farmland

[mr stihl]

Raf Langham (North Norfolk) is mostly farmland and a few turkey sheds but the ww2 dome is still there. Matt

[Rich H]

RAF Gaydon (Warwickshire) - first V-Bomber base(138 Sqdn with Valiants) , later home to 2 Air Nav School (Varsity) and 637 VGS - vehicle test facility first with BL/Rover via BMW, Ford and Aston Martin to current owner Jaguar Land Rover

[22A]

The airfield to the East of Beccles (RAF Ellough?) was used for much of the 80's & 90's by the helicopter firm serving the North Sea gas & oil rigs. By 2004 it was mainly agricultural in use with one hangar utilised for the Farmer's Market.

Presumably when in use, R/T operators calling up the airfield would have said "'ello Ellough"!

I called in with my children one day and we were shown round. The helo firm used S61Ns which the guide told me are 16' longer than the Sea King variant used by the armed forces. Consequently ex RAF & FAA chappies struggled at times to land on rigs during stormy nights as they then became aware of that extra 16 foot of fuselage behind them. That company had also removed the toilets as without that weight they could fit in three more standard passenger seats. "Well it's only 20 minutes to the furthest rig, so you you should be able to hold on and after that they're only 3 minutes apart".

[TS010]

RAF Wrexham (Borras) most of it owned by Tarmac for quarrying, control tower is a recording studio, still has an ICAO code.

RAF Rednal. Agricultural storage, paintball site and kart track on the runway.

[vinnyboy]

Beccles is still used regular with paradrops and also lots of fly ins of private a/c there is a website for beccles airfield but obviously sadly no longer raf.

[Blue Diamond]

RAF Thurleigh/RAE Bedford.
Southern half is now the Thurleigh Business Park including the runway which is is/has been used for the mass storage of new cars. The northern half houses the Bedford Autodrome, as well as Thurleigh Museum which is dedicated primarily to the airfield and life in the area during World War 2. Local news reports that the autodrome has been chosen as an Olympic training site. Spent many a happy hour watch thing various comings and goings of the RAE and others but haven't been to have a look at the place for a long while.

[Sparts99]

West Malling now a souless industrial and housing estate, some wartime buildings remain, Horsham St Faith now Norwich Airport, Kenley has a VGS and I believe the Home Office maintain some of the original accomodation to use for illegal immigrants but stand to be corrected on that.

Biggin Hill now GA, the RAF memorial chapel is still there, domestic site has become a housing setate, many wartime and 1950's buildings remain.

Detling is now the Kent County Showground.

Gravesend I believe returned to agriculture

Joyce Green near Dartford (WW1) is now a hospital.

Hullavington appears to be a race track, I drove past it in the summer and could see some blister hangars.

And there are loads of wartime ALGs across Kent & Sussex now returned to agriculture but they are a topic on their own.

There was something at Kidbrooke SE London in WW2, I believe a very small strip, now a horrific housing estate.

What's Hornchurch now ?

[HawkEye001]

For those that are interested i can confirm that the Tower at the former RAF Metheringham is going to be restored to its former glory but will be someones house. People will be allowed to veiw it externally and information boards will be erected for when the Visitors Centre is closed.

Regards,

HawkEye001

[RJ79]

Going back to WWI, there used to be airfields at Downham Market and Hethel, Hethel still has a hangar there and is now owned by Lotus and Downham Market is now industrial units IIRC. There is also Wendling, North Pickenham (home of the Thor in Cold War times), and Attlebridge, all used by the Yanks in WW2 and the runways are still there but have umpteen chicken huts on them (all nicely visible from the air too).

[Sparts99]

That reminds me, apparently there was a WW1 airfield at Downham SE London too, now a housing estate.

[beefsteak]

[quote="balders"]Swinderby was perhaps one of the best preserved WW2 RAF bases have changed little from its war days. I had a look round a couple of years which was just aswell as the current owners decided to very sympathetically flatten the whole area even though they had at the time no plans to do anything with it. Here's a few pics.


Just a slight correction here.

The site was purchased (Along with several other sites) by RMC in around 2000 later bought out by Cemex in 2005 to extract aggregates (Sand and gravel) This will go ahead when they have completed their work at former RAF Woodall Spa, utilizing the same plant equipment. Woodall Spa is (As I stated in an earlier post) being returned to nature and at the moment has 4 lagoons being used by a lot of wildlife, RAF Coningsby also have a 9 hole golf course on there!

The company of Cemex were responsible for the demolition of the old control tower, however, the only reason this was demolished was because local yobs from Witham St Hughs had trespassed onto the site and had smashed it up inside (Taking out retaining walls as well as all the windows) thus leaving it in a very dangerous condition. It was therefore decided to demolish and remove it before someone was killed !!

They have not been responsible for the demolision of the hangars as they didn't own this part of the airfield, which were partly owned by a company called British Seed House who sold some of them to a Jewish couple from London who were building a retail park on the site (The last I heard)

It has been estimated that it will take a further 42 years to extract all the aggregate from there!! It will then too be returned to nature and (Like Woodall Spa) be handed over to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.

[TankBuster]

RAF Wethersfield - still largely intact and used for all sorts of things:

- MOD Plod Training School and
- MOD Firearms Training Wing
- 614 Air Cadet gliding school
- fire investigation training

I'm told there's also an emergency large-scale temporary mortuary over there...for when avian flu finally kicks in properly.

Essex Fire & Rescue Service also have a large facility over by the bomb dump where they teach Firefighters all about fire behaviour & how to deal with flashover & backdraught situations, I was on one of the courses there in March. They also do a lot of incident command training on the same site.
http://www.essexfiretraining.co.uk/inde ... &Itemid=11" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

London Fire Brigade also use one of the old runways as a skidpan for their driver training.



TankBuster

[roughcutter]

West Malling now a souless industrial and housing estate, some wartime buildings remain,

Although I never actually visited this airfield, according to the regular reports in Flypast magazine in the early 1980's they used to stage some cracking warbird airshows there !

MarkL

[ginge]

Just a couple from me..

RAF Nuneaton now a motor industry test site,
RAF Desford now Caterpillar industries..

Cheers

[BP2324]

Take a look here:
http://content-delivery.co.uk/aviation/airfields/

Shortcut to aerial views of some of the airfields mentioned above.

[22A]

There was a RAF Station in the Westwood area of Peterborough. Most of the site is given to industrialunits, but the perri track is still visible, the runway however was grass and that's gone. One of P'boro's two ATC squadrons meet in a building on the site thus maintaining a tenuous link. What was the Officer's Mess still stands and continues to look like what it was although today it's a college and for some reason, the road leading to it is Cottesmore Close.
160 miles away at Bristol, Filton still sees some aerial activity whilst to the South, RAF Lulsgate Bottom is now Bristol Airport.

Following the handover of Hong Kong, does the Chinese airfield use the former RAF installations there, or do they not need them?

[G4UMW]

RAF Burtonwood, erased! Well the runway is underneath the M-62.

The control tower there was demolished by the late, great Fred Dibnah.