Spare Runways
Monday, 8th October 2007 by James Turnbull
If you happened to own an airfield, and you just happened to have some spare runways lying around - what would you do with them?
RAF Thurleigh was built during WWII and after the war became a development site known as RAE Bedford, until it was eventually decommissioned in 1994. Since then the airfield has been split into two sections; the Northern half is used for the Bedford Autodrome race track, and the runways are used as mass car-storage.
Last weekend I took a microlight flight over RAE Bedford for a closer look. I didn't actually fly the microlight (the pilot was doing that), I just sat in the back and bored the pilot with "Oooh, it's like a live version of Google Earth!" every couple of minutes.
Anyway, this extra insight enables me to tell you that most of the vehicles looked brand-spanking new, sometimes with 20 or so of the same model lined up next to each other.
Wombleton airfield was also built for WWII - operating as a Canadian Air Force "conversion unit", where pilots who were used to flying small 2 engine planes were trained to fly 4 engines instead. Unlike the Bedford facility however, somebody decided that one of the main runways should instead be used for pig farming.
Unless this is a top-secret facility involved in the genetic engineering of pigs that fly?
Thanks to d5skipper, Oliver Laumann & others and Trina
They aren’t the Rovers are they?
There is also the Bernard Matthews turkey farms making good use of the old airfields in East Anglia
View Placemark
This one in the New Forest (UK) is a rather nice Campsite, even if the ground is slightly too hard to hammer tent pegs into! I am guessing it is WW2 in origin…
If you want identical cars: https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=53.437921,-2.404273&z=18
The former Downsview Air Force base in Toronto has similarly been used for overflow storage by Chrysler for several years:
View Placemark
Bombardier still uses the runways for their testing facility at the southern end of the field.
ha!
I recommended this site about a year ago. Great to see it up here, though. Just goes to show that when you buy a ‘new’ car, it’s actually been sitting in a car park for several weeks or months beforehand.
Also, south westish from the runway is this test complex, featuring a rather cool looking wind tunnel.
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=52.197218,-0.491939&z=17
The biggest pile of wood in the world was established on a former military runway in Byholma, Sweden:
View Placemark
Closer pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ldybdahl/ByholmaWood?authkey=vEVe9dvKC9I
You could always build a racetrack around the old runway and then put a new one in just outside the track: View Placemark
This is Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, AL — 2.66 mile long raceway, home to 2 NEXTEL Cup events per year. The old runways inside the racetrack are now used as parking during race weekends.
Take your pick!
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=51.486868,-2.69827&z=17
I didn’t thought pigs would look that pink from space.