4th FG "Then & Now" just for fun ...

[Lynn Allen]

Debden is also used a lot for motorsports events.....and the reason I've spent a lot of time there.

If you look closely at the Google Earth image posted earlier, you can see the marks in the tarmac on the north section of the north-south runway and nearby peri track from the sprint course that exists there (for those of you in the USA, sprinting is similar to autocross)

Here's a shot taken in 2007 at one of the Debden Sprint events. Taken from the junction of the two runways, looking north up the north-south runway.

Which airport do they shoot for Top Gear??

TIA,

Lynn

[davidbray]

Top Gear is shot at Dunsfold Park.

[Chicoartist]

Awww, Wade...I thought you were talking about something else when you wrote "then and now".

I have some sketches - it's gonna happen one day!

Wade

[Firebird]

Top Gear is shot at Dunsfold Park.

The former BAe/Hawker factory airfield and Harrier production facility, as well as Hunter's and Sea Hawk's prior to that.

[henning]

Thanks for the postings wade,

Great insight as always.. taking the time to do the "then and now" stuff
is always a labor of love, and its really cool when you share things like
this.. I can just imagine the rumble of the engines there in 1944...

keep up the great work and drawings.

Henning

ps. I recall being around down at the 4th FG gig in dayton that year, I don't
think I was in the room when that went down, maybe keith and I were off
talking or something, but I do remember thinking afterwards about this guy
that really knew his stuff.... and the fact you'd spent a year researching and
3 days there makes me laugh as to now I know why. Your artwork on the
4th is one of my treasures that makes me and a lot of the other 4th guys
smile.

[Chicoartist]

... I recall being around down at the 4th FG gig in Dayton that year, I don't think I was in the room when that went down.

Weren't a big deal - just a disagreement of sorts until the bulk of the evidence made the case. In the same film session a guy had a bunch of 4FG gun camera film. Bill Spencer's strafing footage came up, and 10 seconds later Bill walks into the room - surreal!

Much later, on Hyperscale.com a guy mentions in one post that his dad grew up near Prague and witnessed a Mustang belly landing right in front of him and his buddies after they did some strafing. I happened to see the post and I recalled that I had heard a similar story from a pilot at the reunion about his 16 April 45 belly landing alongside a road - long story short the pilot and "Czech kid" (now retired and living in Florida) were brought together and the story made the paper!

Thanks for the kind words -

Wade

[Mark V]

Wade, is the modern shot looking towards where the Mustang was? In the period picture I see the distinct edge of the hard surface running parallel with the fuselage and slightly away from the photographer (perhaps 120 degrees to the camera) but in the modern shot the photo faces the axis of the track. Perhaps that part of the hard surface has since been removed - that would explain it!

[Chicoartist]

Wade, is the modern shot looking towards where the Mustang was?

My ground-level 2002 shot was taken approximately at the apex of the red arrow in one of the GoogleEarth aerials and my camera was facing the same direction as the red arrow. If the Mustang were still in it's WWII position in my 2002 ground shot, it, or maybe part of it, would be (approximately) at the extreme left edge of my photo in front of that berm.

The bay the WWII Mustang was in was a 'double' bay, with GINNY (or any airplane) on one side, and another plane on the other - each with it's own track to the parking spot. Notice the "plan view" of a Mustang I inserted into the directly-overhead GoogleEarth image. That is the approximate location of GINNY in the WWII shot. In the WWII image, there *is* a section of track in front of GINNY that leads back out to the main peri-track. If you look closely at the overhead Google image, you can see that this section has been removed, and the overgrown earth displays a 'pattern' where the concrete/asphalt used to be.

Wade