The 'Introduce yourself' Thread

Hi NJR,
Yes, bought recently via the Pillbox Study Group; it's on my pile of ' to be read ' books - ! A quick shufty promises much useful info.

I think part of the problem was that we didnt think these places would ever disappear!, after all, they had been there for ages or so it seemed to us at the time.

Interesting point Denis. When I first ' discovered ' airfields, they appeared prolific, especially in Norfolk & Suffolk; about seventy sites between the two counties - ! A thousand yards plus of smooth concrete to young lads on bikes was too good to miss; and plenty of buildings to explore when we tired ourselves out - ! We would sometimes sit there at dusk trying to imagine what had gone on twenty years before.

Hello All,

I spend all my free time creating scenery for Microsoft 2004 and FSX. I am particularly interested in the Wellington bomber and I am currently working on modelling a couple of old airfields in Oxfordshire in which the Wellington was based during WWII. I am currently working on RAF Westcott and Mount Farm. I managed to get hold of some Air Ministry Plans from the RAFM which have proved most valuable. I also purchased a copy of Roger Freeman's book Mighty Eighth War Manual on recommendation from forum members which has also proved valuable, albeit from a USAF perspective.

One question I have at the moment is, I need to find out what Runway Approach aids were in use at the time as I would like to try and model some form of ILS, preferably as near authentic if possible. I know that at Westcott there was a Non Directional Beacon but I don't know what was used at Mount Farm. Grateful for any information from forum members. I have tried searching the forum but I cannot find anything specific.

This forum is a great source of information.

Best Regards,

Paul

Welcome to the forum and im glad you have found what you need on here.

Regards,

HawkEye001

Hi Paul, Welcome to the forum, I'm not too far from Bicester, latest girlfriend from Chesterton..

Hi Paul, I was in your area today, Waddesdon? tried to get to Westcott having looked it up on Google Earth last night, drove around for a bit but couldn't gain access, all the entrances to the place appeared to be locked up! Venture parks and such. Had to return home via Bicester town centre, road closed to Oxford direction because of a vehicle accident.

Again welcome to the forum i started to phograph airfields in the very early Seventies and never seemed to have enough film to record every thing at the time . Trying to cover as many aifields as possible in one day was quite a task .

Al the best ,
Bomber .

I am interested in some of the sites and peaple i have previously worked with while in the UK. I started as an apprentice at the Rolls Royce Leavesden plant. Then moved to the Hatfield Test establishment in the Halford Laboratory testing full scale components , turbine overspeed, and compressor demontrator evaluation which was interesting work. After closure , i moved across the runway building, inspecting, and testing the powerplant for the BAe 146. The company , named Avco Lycoming resided at the Hatfield aerospace site. The company name changed to Textron Lycoming and during the BAe Hatfield closure we temporally moved to the closed Hatfield Test Establishment site in Manor Road. We were the last aerospace company to test engines based at Hatfield near the fire practice area at the end of the runway.For a short period testing was stopped to allow filming of "Private Ryan". Some of the sets were blown down accidently by the jet stream and a cascade deflector was manufactured to prevent further damage. Our residence at Hatfield finally ceased and we moved to Luton Airport followed by anther name change to Allied-Signal Aerospce. Since we had no testing capability at Luton , we used the National Gas Turbine Establishment at Pyestock to test the ALF 502/507 powerplant at the Hunting Aeropace test bed.
I now reside in Christchurch New Zealand and currently work for the Christchurch Engine Center, a joint venture between Air New Zealand & Pratt & Whitney, tesing the IAE V2500 , JT8D and we have the master test bed for the good old DART.
Well thats me in a nut shell,
looking forward to hear anybody in the know.

Jet Tester.