In article ,
Jerry wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jul 2003 07:22:44 -0400, "patrick savoie"
wrote:

Very interestings pics. I wonder how they handled noise & air quality with
engines running. It must have been very exciting to be inside when aircraft
were launched.

Actually, they weren't, as they were towed to the surface.

But at least some of them were designed to let aircraft
taxi out under their own power. I don't think anyone
cared much about air quality in the 1950's, most likely
there were other safety concerns or something which proved
to be impractical.

I wondered that too but thought they probably used ear defenders like
on a carrier and probably had some filtration system like in a nuclear
bunker.

For most practical purposes, they were intended as full NBC
protected bunkers. But I won't go into detail...

Urban do you know why they are no longer used?

....because they *are* used! It's just that the F 18 and F
9 wings have been disbanded. And F 8. F 16 will be
disbanded as a _wing_ at the end of 2003, but still be
used as a military airfield, but as I understand it, not a
"war base" (although that doesn't have the same meaning
now as before).
I guess they can be documented better when all are out
of use. And they're not the only interesting things the
air force has had inside mountains. Air defence centres
are sort of obvious, but I think quite a bit of the fuel
storages were intended for the air force as well. Many of
these, not only the air force's are closed now, sealed,
for sale or sold.

This is mostly about dispersed basing:
http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/aviation/text/bas/dispersed_basing.html
But it explains the thinking behind the underground
hangars: They were mainly intended for interceptor
squadrons near our largest cities; The rest of the air
force was supposed to rely on dispersal and camouflage.
There's also the matter that you can't build them
everywhere there's an airbase. (We've got one naval wharf
inside a mountain (you can imagine what you need to lift a
periscope out of a submarine), but when it was planned, we
planned for four more but couldn't find a place in the
south - a hangar doesn't take quite as much but most wings
weren't planned with that in mind.

I've recently learned that at F 18 there's a lower level
which was never finished; Just empty space and gravel
floor today.
--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
A king and an elephant were sitting in a bathtub. The king said, "pass
the soap" and the elephant said, "No soap, radio!"