Hello Nicky - thanks for your comment - yes, it was a marvellous base and served both the County and Country extremely well. I can only imagine you have many great memories from serving there. I hope the short piece brought back some of those memories for you.
One of the hangars should be converted to a museum dedicated to the Spitfire, Lightning and Jaguar. Fast taxi runs of these types down the runway wouldn’t interfere with the solar farm and I know, as an aviation photographer, people would pay good money to have the opportunity to photograph these iconic aircraft roaring along in a live situation. The wonderful Norwich museum is now cut off from the airport (new road) and Bruntingthorpe’s live aircraft are now penned into a corner and some deteriorating away because of cars. Once this history is gone, it’s can only be viewed in great videos like this one and in books. So come on Norfolk CC, turn this into a tourist attraction and bring some much needed revenue into the county.
The guardroom and old police flight at the camp entrance is now a museum, it opens Thursdays and Sundays during the summer months They have just acquired a Jaguar which I believe will be on display in 2025.
They should have moved flying training from Valley to Coltishall and used Valley as the prison. One road on and off the island made for far better security.
Hello, thanks for taking the time to message. As far as I am aware the whole site, which is now under the ownership of Norfolk County Council, has been permanently closed and so I do not think there are any tours anymore.
There were a couple of tours of limited scope in summer 2017 (this video being from 2014) which were meant to include going inside the control tower but the Asbestos issue was realised just days/weeks prior. The RAF Coltishall Heritage Trust ran some similar tours last year (2023) according to their website, but there's no signs of anything listed for 2024 just yet.
The first airbase to have the mighty Lightning squadrons based there.
Can’t believe it’s gone now, what a shame. I served on this base with 6 squadron.
Hello Nicky - thanks for your comment - yes, it was a marvellous base and served both the County and Country extremely well. I can only imagine you have many great memories from serving there. I hope the short piece brought back some of those memories for you.
One of the hangars should be converted to a museum dedicated to the Spitfire, Lightning and Jaguar.
Fast taxi runs of these types down the runway wouldn’t interfere with the solar farm and I know, as an aviation photographer, people would pay good money to have the opportunity to photograph these iconic aircraft roaring along in a live situation.
The wonderful Norwich museum is now cut off from the airport (new road) and Bruntingthorpe’s live aircraft are now penned into a corner and some deteriorating away because of cars. Once this history is gone, it’s can only be viewed in great videos like this one and in books.
So come on Norfolk CC, turn this into a tourist attraction and bring some much needed revenue into the county.
The guardroom and old police flight at the camp entrance is now a museum, it opens Thursdays and Sundays during the summer months They have just acquired a Jaguar which I believe will be on display in 2025.
Hello Dave
Thank-you for taking the time to write a comment and for the update on the acquisition of the jaguar, much appreciated.
Chris
They should have moved flying training from Valley to Coltishall and used Valley as the prison. One road on and off the island made for far better security.
do they still have organised tours ?
Hello, thanks for taking the time to message. As far as I am aware the whole site, which is now under the ownership of Norfolk County Council, has been permanently closed and so I do not think there are any tours anymore.
There were a couple of tours of limited scope in summer 2017 (this video being from 2014) which were meant to include going inside the control tower but the Asbestos issue was realised just days/weeks prior. The RAF Coltishall Heritage Trust ran some similar tours last year (2023) according to their website, but there's no signs of anything listed for 2024 just yet.