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The Fox
April 26, 2008, 3:00pm Report to Moderator Report to Moderator

Secret
Posts: 1,344
These are turning into a life's work.  As soon as you delve into one you find it had hithertoo unknown satellite fields.  There is also a lot of info on the web.
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Apollo
April 26, 2008, 5:12pm Report to Moderator Report to Moderator

Forewarned is Forearmed
Secret
Posts: 3,368
Seriously, if you have latched on to these and are nurturing any thoughts of covering them all, then I strongly urge you think again - it will turn into a life's work, and has largely been done by others.

The AA batteries and Decoy's were chosen way back because:

A. They had finite numbers
B. Most of the info was patchy, but available on RCAHMS
C. The 'unknown' stuff had largely been found by chance before I started
D. Only a few mystery items existed - and still do, but the pages have solved a few too with contributed info

If you have a look even at Wikipedia, which has pages listing things like RAF stations, even there, many have only a name, so no-one from that large audience has had a real stab, and the info on-line is lacking for many. It's a paper exercise, and years of work. Then there's the Naval Station, World War I, Royal Flying Corps, World War II, conversions... You could write a book if you had all the info.

You'd almost be better stealing the Wikipedia (or a similar) lising and using it as the basis foe a summary page like the PoW camps, and hoping someone (or more likely two or three somones) domes along with info and adds, as with the PoW page.

Stabbing at a few local ones or those of interest (due to current demolition and the like) may be a practical idea, but tracking down the lot, even just for a summary page isn't something I'd advise.

I did it for for around 200 of 336 ROC Posts, and that was with the (then) patchy records from Sub-Brit to work with - 2 years of spare time, (tens of) thousands of miles covered, and that didn't even include the extreme Highlands, Islands, or any that needed a ferry. Technically, I';ve got the hardest third to pick up the task on one day - although to be fair, it wouldn't be that bad all in, as many of the most convenient for me to visit were actually left out, due to other circumstances it was easier for me to get to more distant ones.

Honestly, stick with your own area, it's a lot more fun, and doesn't turn into 'work'.

If you did really want to do it, then I'd advise spending time creating the summary first, then working off that - just to keep track.
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the_historian
April 26, 2008, 11:06pm Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Illusion
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Sensible advice. I have DJ Smith's Action Stations 7; Airfields of the NE, Scotland and NI, which is pretty comprehensive in covering all the main, satellite and emergency landing fields. When I used it to compile my own list of Scottish arfields etc, I filled two A4 sheets.......
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The Fox
April 27, 2008, 7:53am Report to Moderator Report to Moderator

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I hadn't set myself the task of finding all of them just to catalogue ones I had come across.  I am fascinated by the number that have turned up so far and how close they were on the ground.  
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Apollo
April 27, 2008, 1:48pm Report to Moderator Report to Moderator

Forewarned is Forearmed
Secret
Posts: 3,368
Yes, it is interesting to see them.

You might want to try firing up the People's Map from one of our Main Site pages, and scrolling up to the north east.

Unlike the others (Google and Microsoft) this has the high resolution imagery available for nearly all the area.

If you zoom in/out to the right level, it's possible to spot the runway patterns for most of the airfield up there, which isn't possible with the other mapping services at the moment.

Grass runways don't show up too well, if at all, but can sometimes be spotted if you already know they existed.

It's also interesting to look nearby, as you can find signs of camps that are not otherwise obvious.

I've visited Inverallochy and seen the evidence on the ground near the road (and might add that you can make out the Battle HQ there in the People's Map imagery, which shows how good it is - and for free!), however, when I looked at their aerial images of the same spot, it was amazing to see just how much you can't see when you're on the ground. Admittedly, at the time I didn't even know the camp was there, only discovering it on arrival, but still significant that there was no clue visible to the other remains hinted from eyeballing the area, and I did eyeball it from the highest ground available there.
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