# RAF Upper Heyford Airfield Side (Legit) Jan '11



## mookster (Jan 26, 2011)

*Pic heavy*

Massive thanks to TBM for organising this tour of the airfield side of Upper Heyford, on which me and Treadstone and a non-member tagged along.

We were shown around by an ex-maintenance worker, who has worked on-site for 35 years and so we got a huge history lesson as well - I for one didn't realise that Upper Heyford was the blueprint for every other RAF airfield in the UK, or that there is a plane named after it - the only plane ever named after an airfield. We saw pretty much everything there is to see from the monolithic Avionics building half-buried in the ground, to the dozens of hangars, the jet engine test bay, the ammo/weapons storage bunkers, and of course the jewel in it's crown the Chemical/Biological weapons control centre bunker which was absolutely amazing.

Avionics:

















General hangars:













The hangars are either closed up or being used to store stuff as varied as bales of hay, farm machinery, cars, personal/private documents and grit for the roads. This one was full of grit and a tractor













Then this was a great surprise, asking what the odd-shaped building was behind some of the hangars I received a reply of 'That's where they used to test jet engines', so at that point I got fairly excited!





























We then moved onto the weapons storage facility, the compound is triple-fenced with coils of barbed wire across the top of each, a watchtower where an armed guard would be 24/7, a reinforced guard building that looks more like a giant pillbox and, at one stage, a gun turret above the main entrance.

























Ammo store designed to look like an office block, behind the windows is concrete and inside is nothing more than a reinforced concrete shell.

























CB Control Centre in next post...


----------



## mookster (Jan 26, 2011)

Last stop on the visit was the jewel in the crown, the CB Control Centre which is often mistaken for a nuclear bunker, in reality it's nothing of the sort but provided a safe place to command forces in the event of the cold war turning nasty.













































Cheers for looking, more pics here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/sets/72157625786390881/

Oh and please, don't try and do this stuff non-legit, it won't end well!


----------



## BahrainPete (Jan 26, 2011)

Absolutely excellent, thanks.


----------



## krela (Jan 26, 2011)

Fantastic stuff!


----------



## tommo (Jan 26, 2011)

wicked and great to see some more pics coming out of here, looks like the place to be this summer


----------



## bonecollector (Jan 26, 2011)

Looks absolutely stunning.
Thanks for sharing.


----------



## klempner69 (Jan 26, 2011)

Top stuff Mooky,what lense were you using inside the last place with the phones?


----------



## mookster (Jan 26, 2011)

Cheers guys, it's a fantastic place to spend a few hours with a very knowledgable guide. The jet engine test bay was inaccessible last time, one of our group managed to open the incredibly heavy door! Also note the toilet roll on the right of the 3rd from bottom pic, that caused much discussion about 'sh*tting in fear' amongst other theories as to why it was there...

The only lens I have is the standard 28mm wide angle which comes on the Fujifilm S2800 I use, which is a brilliant bridge camera


----------



## gingrove (Jan 27, 2011)

Outstanding!


----------



## Munchh (Jan 27, 2011)

Agree with the others, you've done very well to get access here and made a great job of your pics. Congrats and thanks for sharing.


----------



## spitfire (Jan 27, 2011)

What is the place being used for now? Normally they get sold off and used for housing etc with the exception of WoodBridge.


----------



## mookster (Jan 27, 2011)

spitfire said:


> What is the place being used for now? Normally they get sold off and used for housing etc with the exception of WoodBridge.



The communal side is mostly derelict apart from the gym and the housing which is still lived in. The hospital, supermarket, hairdressers, bank, officer's club, barrack blocks, restaurant, high school and police training centre are all derelict. On the airfield side Paragon use some of the runways for new car storage, some of the buildings and runway space is used for police training (there was a big police training session on when we were there), other companies have leased old hangars and warehouses for their businesses as part of Heyford Park and some of the 50 or so aircraft hangars are used to store farm equipment, grit, documents etc. But on the airfield side the Skyking theatre and everything you see in this post is derelict but sealed securely.


----------



## mrscorp (Jan 29, 2011)

Great Pics, thanks for sharing them with us all.


----------



## Dexter24 (Jan 30, 2011)

Fantastic photos very well done.
In you info you say that an aircraft was named after the Airfield and was trhe only aircraft to be named after a airfield, just to be pendantic there is the Hawker Siddeley Andover (HS 780) is a twin engined turboprop military transport aircraft produced by Hawker Siddeley for the Royal Air Force and named after RAF Andover in Hampshire.


----------



## skeleton key (Jan 30, 2011)

Hi Mookster realy quality and well done 


SK


----------

