WAR AERODROMES

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 138, 8 December 1945, Page 11

WAR AERODROMES

£600,000,000 SPENT

BRITISH AIR MINISTRY

Experience gained by the Air Ministry in the tremendous task of building aerodromes during the war is likely to be of great value In the Empire peacetime civil aviation plans. The general public knows very little of the Air Ministry department which has done this colossal job during' the War, and even the Royal Air Force has no full appreciation of its work. It, is called the Air Ministry Director-ate-General of Works, officially referred to as A.M.D.G.W., coloquially in the R.A.F. as "Works and Bricks." It has been resioonsible for the design, execution, and maintenance of all R.A.F. building and civil engineering works in the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Eas£ and West Africa, Irak, Aden, and until the Japanese invasion, Malaya.

A.M.D.G.W. spent approximately £600,000,000 during the first five years of the war. Over 160,000,000 square yafds of! concrete were laid in runways, perimeter tracks, and dispersal points. Sir Archibald Sinclair recently compared this with a 9000-mile long. 30-yard wide highway from 'London to Pekin. One million prefabricated buildings were erected to provide living, messing, Workshop and training accommodation. The R.A.F. laid 336,000 miles of electric cable during the war. For wartime purposes, the laying out of aerodromes was standardised to an extraordinary degree, and from its inception, from the choosing' of the site to the stage when contracts for construction were let, the construction of an aerodrome conformed to a definite pattern. Closest liaison was maintained throughout between Government Departments and such public bodies as war agricultural committees and electricity and catchment boards Water supply and draining facilities tequire the most extensive and intricate planning, and one paramount consideration is the possibility of flooding nearby land with overflow from the aerodrome.

The standard type of aerodrome, which was planned in conjunction with experienced serving officers, consists of three unreinforced concrete runways, all 150 ft wide, one of them over a. mile long, and the three enclosing an equiangular triangle if there is room for it. The six runway ends are connected by a perimeter track 50ft wide—this track would measure about three miles.