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Post by connieguy on Jul 26, 2019 7:49:11 GMT -5
I have recently been reading Freeman's history of the Eighth Air Force and became aware of the ferry flights by which their bombers and P-38s reached the United Kingdom. In the course of this it became evident that Prestwick was not the only airfield in northern Britain which received them, but that Stornoway, which was 200 miles nearer to Iceland, did so too. See the map on the link below:
Stornoway was always an RAF field (not completely correct - see below), although the photographs in John Hewson's very useful Flickr album show that it was served by BEA DC3s c.1950. I have read on the net that it was also used during the Cold War for flights to Iceland and Greenland, but it was not clear whether there was US involvement in this. I am working on a scenery which I intend releasing, consisting mainly of library objects (a big RAF hangar is still there), although I have done a Sketchup model of the smaller dark hangar shown in the photographs. However, does anybody know any more about the Cold War use of this airfield?
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Post by chris_c on Jul 26, 2019 13:18:58 GMT -5
Not entirely sure how much of an RAF footprint was there. It was not included in the RAF's Quick Reaction Alert bases for Fighter Command (and later Air Defence Command) nor was it a dispersal base for the V-Bomber force when Bomber Command (later Strike Command) had the nuclear deterrence role. This ended around 1969 when Polaris went to sea in the R-Class ballistic missile submarines.
I suspect that it was a lively Coastal Command base during WW2 but it does not appear to have been important during the Cold War period except as an Electronic Warfare ground based testing and calibration unit was based there for a time.
-C
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Post by connieguy on Jul 27, 2019 3:53:00 GMT -5
Many thanks, Chris. As a result of what you say and after a little more research I now have a better understanding of it. There are Wikipedia articles on 'Stornoway Airport' and 'RAF Stornoway', but the most useful is the one at the link below. Basically, building started in the 1930s with the intention of it being a civil airport but by the time it was finished the war had started and it was taken over for the use of RAF Coastal Command. It was also used for landing aircraft coming from the USA and to facilitate this US personnel were stationed there. This is the nearest the article gets to acknowledging Operation Bolero. Nevertheless, civilian flying went on at the same time and a service between Stornoway and Inverness began in 1944. When the war ended military use was scaled down and things were relatively quiet but not non-existent in the 1950s and 1960s, until a resurgence in military activity led to Tornadoes being stationed there in the 1980s before the RAF left altogether in 1998. There was no proper civilian terminal on the airfield at least between the late 1940s and 1963. BEA used an address in Cromwell Street, Stornoway as its terminal, and one of John's photographs shows a BEA bus parked outside it. In the summer of 1955 Pionairs provided a daily service which started at Glasgow Renfrew and terminated in Stornoway after calling at Benbecula, and there was also a service between Stornoway and Inverness four times a week in June and daily in July and August. 45 minutes usually separated the departure times from the terminal and from the airport, and the buses and aircraft parked near a fairly humble structure labelled on the photgraphs as the 'administration building'. It looks as though it may have been a former RAF structure painted white. Near to it was a largish hangar which bore the legend 'Stornoway' above the doors, perhaps because there was no other suitable building upon which to place it. It is difficult making out the nature of the apron from the photographs, but it seems to have been very small. I shall now make one or two adjustments to the scenery... www.abct.org.uk/airfields/airfield-finder/stornoway/
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Post by johnhinson on Jul 29, 2019 15:47:39 GMT -5
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Post by connieguy on Jul 30, 2019 3:51:24 GMT -5
According to the airfields site to which I linked above the airfield was planned and built as a civil airport with grass runways, but one of the charts in John Hewson's Flickr album refers to the ground being soft and it seems almost certain that concrete runways were laid for wartime use. John's Jeppesen chart for 1970 shows that the longest was then 6033 feet. I at first deduced from the layout of the taxiways that it was originally about 5000 feet long but have revised this opinion. Roger Freeman's 'The Mighty Eighth' (London, 1970), p. 282 has a wartime aerial shot of the USAAF base at Hardwick in Norfolk and he gives the length of the longest runway as 2000 yards (6000 feet). The dispersals shown on this photograph are very reminiscent of those still to be seen at Stornoway and given its use by the Eighth during Operation Bolero it seems probable that its longest runway was then about 6000 feet too; unless, of course, evidence should emerge to the contrary.
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Post by wriric on Jul 30, 2019 4:39:57 GMT -5
Following extract from "British Airports" published 1964 by Ian Allan -
"This aerodrome lies on a strip of land between Stornoway Harbour and the Eye Peninsular on the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, the approaches to the main runway being over the sea. Used before the war by commercial airline services from Renfrew, it was requisitioned and reconstructed with hard runways in 1941 for RAF Coastal Command. Since the war, under M.o.A. [ Ministry of Aviation ] control, it has been exclusively a civil aerodrome, linked by BEA to Renfrew, via Inverness and Benbecula. It is large enough to handle occasional diversions or emergency landings by aircraft on the Atlantic routes."
Given the main runway is shown as 6035 x 150 feet, I'm not sure about the desirability of diverting in the jet age !
Richard.
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Post by connieguy on Jul 30, 2019 5:36:52 GMT -5
Thank you very much, Richard. The early history fits with other information on it being originally a civilian field which was requisitioned and it is good to have a definite date for the construction of the runways. It seems that there were military things going on there in 1964 which Ian Allan were not allowed to mention or of which they were unaware (see the site linked above on No 112 Signals Unit); I guess it might depend exactly what you mean by 'exclusively a civil aerodrome'. At any rate, there was reconstruction and runway extension for military purposes after that and extensive military use of it, but that is beyond the period with which my scenery is concerned. Thanks again, Ken
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Post by johnhinson on Jul 31, 2019 2:41:27 GMT -5
Given the main runway is shown as 6035 x 150 feet, I'm not sure about the desirability of diverting in the jet age ! Ah well, hence my point about the Faroes - they can't land big jets there either, so diversions from there shouldn't in theory have any issues. Last I saw they were flying Avro RJs, but maybe something a bit more modern these days. John
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Post by connieguy on Aug 5, 2019 6:29:44 GMT -5
I have just uploaded this to Flightsim and it should be there shortly. My thanks to John Hewson not only for his Flickr album on Stornoway, without which I could not have done it, but also for a certain amount of beta testing. Flightsim are quick these days. Here is the link:
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Post by jwh on Aug 5, 2019 23:56:39 GMT -5
Really like this type of vintage scenery particularly the old style runways either with just a white centreline or none at all. Lovely work.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2019 0:52:55 GMT -5
Nice, I already had a more modern version of Stornoway installed but will see how this works in FSX. A reading of your sources also captured my interest and it is clear that Stornoway was established in case it was needed which it was. All the RAF/RNAS squadrons there were not full deployments but were sent up as detachments, so a few basic personnel to handle stuff on the ground and a handful of aircraft only would have done. It seems everybody got a go there at one stage. They would have sent up a few aircraft were tasked for various jobs and would rotate back through the main Squadron bases for maintenance etc. So very little infrastructure would have been build but the absolute bare minimum, a hangar an office a couple of sheds. Fuel would have been stored in drums in the open. It would appear it was nominated as an alternate for the huge ferry operation to the UK from the US that was Operation Bolero. Given the weather in the Hebrides that would have been infrequent, low cloud, high winds and freezing conditions. Cannot imagine doing some Coastal Command patrols in an Avron Anson out of there, the Anson was a cold miserable aeroplane fabric and metal tube with a wood wing, very hard to keep warm in that over the North Atlantic. The RNAS even sent up a couple of Barracudas (another dud) from time to time. But as equipment improved, Hudson, Whitleys and Halifaxes were all rotated through there.
I see Loganair still run flights in and out of Stornoway but its heyday would really have been the North Sea Oil work and the later stages of the cold war when it was upgraded to take Tornados which were based there for a while, again as a detachment. The aerodrome has good aids now and is not bad at all.
I can almost hear the groans from the various crews who would have been told they were doing a stint at Stornoway and the detachment status clearly says they needed it but nobody was going to make it a major career move. Winter in the Hebrides, brrrrrr!
Oh and Atlantic Air out of the Faroes currently run A320s there is some nice scenery for FSX for the Faroes as well but they have one airport but dozens of heliports. Been in and out of there several times in the sim using the BAE 146 always in and out to Glasgow via Stornoway but never landed there. Will have to now.
Thanks nice work always appreciated these little out of the way places.
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Post by connieguy on Aug 6, 2019 5:13:57 GMT -5
Thanks very much, Mike. I hope that it works in FSX. Above is the chart which I can consult in the cockpit and which I ought perhaps to have added to the download. I did not give the main runway ILS but the NDB is sufficient for landings in reasonable visibility and Manfred Jahn's GCA Gauge will deal with reduced visibility. I have been flying there in summer, but as you say winter will be a different matter, Ken
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Post by Bjoern on Aug 6, 2019 15:32:13 GMT -5
Stornoway also had the only Low Frequency Radio Range station in Europe. Must've been part of the Atlantic airway in WW2.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2019 2:48:52 GMT -5
Stornoway also had the only Low Frequency Radio Range station in Europe. Must've been part of the Atlantic airway in WW2. Thanks for the reminder advice, I discovered I had actually installed this range some time ago with the intention of doing some range flying. I now have the updated gauge so intend to give it a work out in the older pistons, once I get a list together of where they all are - you forget sometimes about stuff like this. Thanks again.
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Post by jwh on Aug 7, 2019 6:25:02 GMT -5
Have uploaded two 1954 charts for Stornoway to my Flickr page added them to the Stornoway album. Perhaps be of interest to those wanting to do vintage approaches to the airport.
John
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