coastrider: Easy on a Sunday Morning...

Up early and a couple of hours loop on easy twin track on the 29er enjoying the harvest scenery...
Forecast was skies to cloud over and windy later but apart from a haze in the distance there was no wind and quiet, except for distant drone of grain driers on farms...

The former WW2 RAF Drem fighter command airfield is a favourite place of mine to ride around...

Having seen in here while at high school this should be a museum, it was the night fighter training building, and had strange instruments and seats when we er... got in there in the 1980s...

The Battle HQ bunker...

Dug open in 2010 after being sealed for over 50 years it is hoped it will become an ideal residence for bats .
I visited a week later after it was opened before the chance of bats starting to roost in there.
Give them some peace and quiet today and do not enter and disturb them.
Here is a film i did inside then in 2010 if you want to know what its like...

The Control Tower is gone now but sat here near this corner on the perimeter track, the Battle HQ bunker is on the grass hill behind...

Here is a picture showing the control tower in 1945 when German officers escorted in by Spitfires landed a white painted Junkers Transporter at Drem and were taken to Edinburgh to sign the surrender of occupied Norway...

Smile! your here at last -:)...

All the Dispersal pens have been flattened now except one, and today just horses are stationed here...

Many Squadrons passed through RAF Drem during WW2 with different types of aircraft...

Spitfires...

Hurricanes...

P51 Mustangs...

A great colour picture of a Mosquito squadron here at Drem
Imagine the noise of this squadron of `Wooden Wonders` taking off!...

If i could jump in a time machine this is one place i would love to see in its day.
I need to do a specific post on RAF Drem as i have so many pictures now and never done a specific post.
You can view an album on Flickr of the former airfield from 3 years ago, i took the pics just in time as many buildings have been incorperated into horse paddocks;
RAF Drem today...

A film i made of here a few years back came to life when i came across audio of a former young pilot of 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron reading out a letter a few years ago that he wrote to his parents in june 1940 before about to take his first flight in a Spitfire here at Drem.
His name was Nigel Rose and he would fight in the Battle of Britain that long hot summer and he survived and features on the excellent BBC series `Spitfire Ace`...

The film i made features pictures of Drem and Battle of Britain gun camera of Squadrons who passed through Drem on R&R during that intense struggle to victory in the summer of 1940...

Well there was a P51 Mustang flying around here again today!, waiting on a friend to arrive to charge something i chatted with the owner of this RC plane, and i am going to return with some prints of WW2 pics of RAF Drem for the model flying club and hopefully do a blog post on their planes...