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Post by keefyboy on Jan 18, 2016 18:33:09 GMT
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Post by filair on Jan 18, 2016 19:43:27 GMT
With the M4 on one side and a railway line on the other it should prove to be very desirable from a housing point of view.
This years Emergency Services Show could be the last one here,it may be the last chance to look at some of the site from the
inside.
A great pity I think.
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Post by keefyboy on Jan 18, 2016 20:42:00 GMT
Maybe the new housing development might come with a new railway station?
The end game appears to be 55,000 houses on MOD property across the UK. I think I'm right in saying that MOD still own Keevil and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that appear on the final list as an overflow for Trowbridge housing.
My kids and grandson always enjoy the Emergency Services Show in September - lets hope they find an alternative venue in Wiltshire.
What always fascinates me about Hullavington is what you can't see - if you go on Google Earth you'll see a couple of hangars hidden behind a clump of trees towards the western end of the airfield. I've often wondered what might be in them - probably farming machinery - but a dozen forgotten Miles Marathons would be nice. I'll dream on.
Cheers
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Post by graham on Feb 13, 2016 10:17:56 GMT
Only ever visited Hullavington once keefy, for the 1970 World Aerobatics Champs. Like you I often wonder what might still be there. Rather like Wroughton which I drive past several times a month, how I'd love to get inside the hangars there.
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Post by keithh on Feb 13, 2016 10:59:14 GMT
Only ever visited Hullavington once keefy, for the 1970 World Aerobatics Champs. Like you I often wonder what might still be there. Rather like Wroughton which I drive past several times a month, how I'd love to get inside the hangars there. There was a lot tucked away in 1970 I recall. They stashed competitors and support aircraft in lots of nooks and crannies. The only time that I've been near since was when a Messenger overflow the road on take off as I drove by. |
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Post by keefyboy on Feb 13, 2016 14:02:03 GMT
Slight thread drift here but I recall doing an audit of the then MOD PE stores deport at Aston Down in the early ninties. This is located just up the road from Hullavington and just north west of Kemble. As well as being the main site at the time for auctions of surplus MOD vehicles, IT equipment etc, it had some 18 hangars that were crammed full of surplus military equipment - mostly army and air force equipment, spare parts and jigs and tools. I seem to recall a couple of complete aircraft but can't remember what they were without finding the old logs.
The site had just been taken over by Serco with a remit to introduce a computerised stock accounting and control system. I felt a bit sorry for Serco as nobody really had much of a clue as to what the vast majority of line items on the shelves and in skips were - and I'm talking millions of components that were not properly labelled as to their intended usage - part numbers were always visible but what a bloody task it was gonna be. I managed to get round half the hangars and it was pretty much the same story in each - a chap would point to an area and say that's all Meteor components from the 50's or Canberra stuff from the 60's and so on. The problem arose because MOD branches that consigned items to the depot in the 50s/60s disbanded, got absorbed into new branches, reorganised, cleared out records to make space, staff turnover and so it goes on. In other words most records got lost in the mists of time. When the VC10 tanker conversion programme finished at Filton in the late 80's, over 100,000 jigs and tools were transferred to the depot at least these were labelled. I gather the depot has now closed and I have absolutely no idea how or when they disposed of the contents of the hangers.
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