Fighting Irish Forums

Came across a couple of things about local aviation history that I thought I would share.

It seems that there was a large airship station built in WW1 near Howden, which is the nearest town to where I live (3 miles away) - trying to imagine what it must have been like to see these huge dirigibles flying overhead! There is a fair bit on the web about it, an example being:

http://www.airshipsonline.com/sheds/Howden.htm

I also did a bit of research on the local airfield at Breighton, next village up the river to us, which was a WW2 Bomber Command airfield. The airfield was the home of 78 Squadron which flew Halifax bombers, and 460 Squadron which flew Wellingtons and then Lancasters. Again quite a bit on the web:

http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/breighton.htm

http://www.oldairfields.fotopic.net/c307181.html

I have a funny feeling that my Grandpa flew with 78 Sqn. I'll ask him, but he doesn't like to talk about it at all.

Very interesting, nice find

So Neal, you did, in fact, have two sheds?

thanks for the history,

F

Got a bit of aviation here as well.

Even the RAF got into the act. Vernon Castle was killed here whilst training students. He was a Canadian and half of the Vernon and Irene Castle dance duo. The counterpart of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13035

A lot more happened around here as well. B-24's, B-36's, B-58's, F-111's, F-16's and many more have there origins 3 miles from where I sit. Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) is about 30 miles East of me. Before that is was Chance-Vought and before that was Vultee. The old Globe-Swift aircraft factory was about 4 block North of where I work. The hangar was finally torn down 2 years ago after it began collapsing. Bell Helicopter used it for several years after Swift went under. Bell's main plant is still operating in NE Tarrant County.

Pappy Spinks was an acquaintance of mine. I met the crusty old fart after I back from 'Nam and was messing with planes. He was quite a guy. http://american-aerobatics.com/Members% ... trails.pdf I knew several of the names mentioned in that article as well.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/ ... 01299.html

If you go to http://www.airfields-freeman.com/TX/Air ... th_SE.html And scroll down to the Oak Grove Airport. There is an overhead view of the field. On the left side of the field you can see two large hangars. The smaller hangar has a big radar dome in front. Before NOAA built that damned radar, we would drag our wheels on the top of that hangar as we turned to final. It would scare the shyte of anyone in the hangar and it also shook loose a lot of the mud dauber wasp nests on the ceiling..

More interesting stuff here.http://www.airfields-freeman.com/TX/Air ... rth_NW.htm

We had lots of fun breaking the rules back then.

Lots more to write about but it needs to be in a book.