VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 12:43:33 11/08/03 Sat
Author: A Serving Airman
Subject: Re: Machrihanish
In reply to: George 's message, "Machrihanish" on 05:02:43 01/22/03 Wed

Hi I served at Machrihanish from '94 to it's transfer to deep care and maintenance on April '96.

In that time we emptied ALL the buildings of ALL equipment. The old control tower was still in use up until a week or two before we handed the station over to Highlands and Islands airports authority. Just as well as the wooden steps to the upper part of the tower (Local Control) were breaking as we were clearing it. At that point we started throwing desks over the balcony! only one building was out of bounds to us as we cleared them. This was one of the old accomodation buildings and it was infested. I am not suprised by this as the old accomodation buildings were very 1950's in design - single story etc. and were in a terrible state.
We even emptied the Seals compound - who if memory serves me right left December 95/January 96. It is true that the seals didn't want to leave as Machrihanish was ideal for training (terrible weather - 40ft waves etc.)
Yes, forces used the base throughout this period - I remember Paras, Marines and 'others', but they were only training in the local hills.
There certainly wasn't any secrets of the base at this time. In fact there were only 50 RAF Personnel based there (only 16 singlies across the ranks)
Yes it was strange how much money they spent on the base before closing it. But have a look at other bases that closed as part of options for change and see how much money was spent on upgrading them before consigning them to the scrap heap.

I am not surprised as to the interest in Britains Area 51. It had the second largest runway in Britain (10,003ft if I remember rightly). It had one single very large hanger that appeared unused (and in my time was used once for a USAF learjet). A local hairdresser started quizzing me one time on the 'secret nuclear submarine pen under the runway'.

It's all rumour and unfounded. We cleared the place so completely that nothing could work there if it wanted to. Even the new tower only had one VHF radio in it, no radars, direction finding equipment etc.

If a base was so secret - would it really allow civil aircraft to fly in and have it's own air terminal?

Ask the locals what they saw happening at the base in the period I was based there and they may recall huge bonfires occuring just by the runway - this was all the furniture, blankets etc that couldn't be reused elsewhere. Even industrial drills were sledge hammered as they couldn't be sold or sent to other stations.

Mind you, they might tell you about secret goings on mightn't they - just think how much money might be spent in the area by conspiracy theorists.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.