Bruntingthorpe

[stevie]

Cheers Delboy,

As Jason mentioned. We managed to get up to the WW2 control tower at Bruntingthorpe to take a few snaps. It's in great condition used today by a local company! It was used as met office during the USAF's time on the airfield during the 60's.




Not sure about the dodgy 'extension' on the side of the tower!!!!!

We were wondering what this could be below....No doubt from the USAF'S days. Any ideas anyone??? Something to do with fuel? it's situated right next to the big US parking pads.


The Squash court stands alone in a field just outside the main airfield.

[stevie]

I'm pretty sure this has got to be my final bunch of pictures from Brunty...There can't be much left that i've not already seen and photographed!!! Then again you never know......



Below. The Vulcan at rest in the old USAF hangar for the winter awaiting whatever 2009 has in store.




Cheers
Steve

[vulcanb2]

The Bruntingthorpe Vulcan hangar has always defeated me in my UK hangar research endeavours for ARG/Institution of Civil Engineers. Stevie said : “it was definately in an excellent book by Roy Bonser called "Aviation In Leicestershire and Rutland" which mentions the american hanger being a Butler.”

The Butler designation is confusing as the Defence Estates Technical Bulletin TB02/02 has the Butler as a 40ft span pitched-roof steel portal frame with tapered I-section column & rafter members, whereas the Brunt example appears to be a reinforced concrete(?) arch with small add-on steel trusses on the main arch members at the crown, and obviously much larger span & rise. Similar examples to Brunt are Hangar 4/Bldg 303 at Greenham Common, plus the ‘Wimpy’ example at Alconbury that I didn’t previously know about.

In attempts to get more info on USAF hangars in UK I have previously downloaded ‘History & Architecture of Military Aircraft Hangars’ by Julie L Webster, US Army Construction Engineering Lab., Illinois, May 2001, but only appears to cover US examples. Another interesting download was ‘Air Force Bases Vol.2, Air bases Outside the USA’ by Harry Fletcher, 1993, but only covers unit allocations/personnel, not buildings. An interesting website that goes into more detail is the American Library of Congress website on American Memory-Architecture, see: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/List ... +Landscape
Searching ‘hangar’ gives 110 hits, all in USA, but much detail on drawings/history on all sorts of hangar/airship shed.

Is there any chance of seeing any drawings at least of the Brunt/Greenham hangar as it is probably one of the few concrete hangars in UK (ie Type Ds-obviously, Abingdon, BOAC Heathrow, Heston & the two demolished ones at Doncaster) and as such is of particular interest, which needs recording. For instance, not personally having visited or made any enquiries of Brunt, would they have any drawings of it? Any help gratefully received.

Hopefully
Ian

[norwichpaul]

Another hangar of this type was built at Blackbush - known as the US Navy Hangar. The 'QRA Shed' is an Alert Shed.

[stevie]

Heres just a few of the hundreds of pictures i took from a great day at Brunty's Cold War Jets Open Day...and amazingly it didn't hammer it down with rain for a change......


Couldn't resist getting a couple of piccys of Bruntingthorpe's massive runway. Above - at the beginning of the day and below - at the end -


Just for you Balders as promised mate .....The Lightnings and the QRA shed which is almost completed!



Vulcan going through her pre-airshow season maintenance inside the Wimpy..Butler...oh! whatever hangar it is!






The Lightning's take off run was totally awesome but for me the real highlight of the day was the Victor. The most dramatic take off run it's ever done as anybody that witnessed it will agree!



Cheers,
Steve

[Hawkeye001]

Apparently there is going to be alot of trouble at Brunty because of the Victor doing a fast taxi run and left the ground albeit about 20-30 foot in the air.

CAA are going to have a feild day over this lets hope it doesnt stop them from doing fast taxi runs in the future.

HawkEye001

[stevie]

Thanks for the kind words about the pics guys.

Hawkeye - Lets just say the Victors appearence proved to be a hell of a lot more dramatic than anybody (including the pilots) were expecting!!!

I dread to think what the out come of this will be to be honest!

Steve

[hornet]

check here or pictures of victor airborne, not very neat, could have been a disaster.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topi ... orpe&mid=0

[hornet]

more information can be found here.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... -taxi.html

[stevie]

It was the end of an era today at Bruntingthorpe as the Vulcan took off from the airfield for the last time after living here for 16 years following her retirement from the RAF. She flew off to perform some flight tests and then on to her temporary new home for the display season at Brize Norton.

So heres some shots i took this afternoon.
Sorry the pics aren't brilliant. Lets face it they wouldn't exactly make the pages of Flypast as it's a nightmare trying to photograph moving objects with no zoom on my camera!
Here they are never the less -






Nice long shot here (not that i had a choice ha ha) as she climbed out -


and she gave us one final flypast -





At least we've still got the other V- bomber at Brunty -


Cheers,
Steve