After years of daily aircraft activity every runway eventually needs re-surfacing and right now it’s the turn of RAF Brize Norton.  When the decision was made to re-surface a plan was needed which would allow the RAF’s aircraft operations to continue while the work was being done.  After investigating how this could be done there were two options to choose from.

The first was for the RAF to stay at Brize Norton but only operate their aircraft for 12 hours a day and then allow the construction workers to work for 12 hours every night.  Although this plan removed the need for a second base it would have significantly restricted aircraft operations, have taken two to three times as long to finish as a complete closure will and have cost significantly more to do.

The second and preferred option was to move the whole Brize Norton operation to another base for the duration of the construction work, the trouble was finding somewhere with enough parking space for 25 large aircraft that also had the fuel, passenger and freight facilities on site.

In the end a compromise involving RAF Fairford was made, the aircraft and their maintenance operations would move to RAF Fairford while the passenger and freight processing would remain at their traditional terminals at nearby RAF Brize Norton.

The move to RAF Fairford is expected to last four months and there are significant incentives to encourage the construction companies to finish the work on time.  RAF Fairford will have an Initial Operating Capability (IOC) from September 10^th that will allow the base to begin receiving Brize Norton’s aircraft as their finish their missions however none are expected to start arriving until the 14^th.  By the 15^th aircraft will be able to both launch and recover from missions at Fairford and on the 19^th RAF Brize Norton’s runway officially closes.

Although Brize Norton has a large fleet of aircraft there are always some deployed around the world supporting British operations.  Due to these deployments it’s expected that the RAF will typically have 8 Tri-stars, 15 VC-10s and up to 4 C-17s of theirs at Fairford at anyone time.  Additionally 2 to 4 charter aircraft a week are expected, usually 747s, however being modern commercial aircraft they have very quiet engines.

The aircraft that normally visit Brize Norton, such as other RAF aircraft or those carrying foreign VIPs, will not be coming to Fairford.  Instead they will be using other RAF stations such as Waddington, Lyneham and Northolt.  To help reduce the number of aircraft using Fairford even more the Brize Norton flying club are moving to RAF Benson for the duration of the runway work.



 

Regardless of how soon the runway work is completed there are no plans to return the aircraft to Brize Norton before Christmas.  Although operational commitments will still need to be met Christmas Day and Boxing Day are due to be no flying days at RAF Fairford.  Assuming the runway work finishes on time the aircraft will start to return to Brize Norton on Jan 2^nd.

There are on average 17 aircraft movements a day at Brize Norton with 2 to 5 of these during “quiet” hours.  The majority of quiet hours flying involves the C-17 which being a modern aircraft is significantly quieter than the others.  Additional non-based aircraft will only come to Fairford if they are in direct support of Brize Norton’s operational mission, the base has a 24/7 role supporting operations around the world, notably Afghanistan, Iraq and Hurricane Katrina recently, and operations must go on.

To help even more to keep aircraft noise to a minimum there will be no practice diversions, training work or touch and goes allowed at Fairford wherever possible by either the based or any passing aircraft.  Instead the aircraft will be sent to other RAF airfields to perform their training flights before returning home to Fairford.  It’s these training flights which typically make up the majority of Brize Norton’s aircraft movements today.

Around 350 ground crew per shift keep Brize Norton’s mission running and will always been working at Fairford operating on a continuous 24/7 pattern.  In addition to the RAF ground crews who will be working at Fairford the RAF will also be sending their own aircraft specific ground equipment.  This will primarily consist of aircraft loading equipment, ground power carts and air stairs.  The USAF has provided a lot of advice and guidance to the RAF as Fairford is a considerably different style of airfield for the RAF to work out of.

Maintenance of the aircraft always has to be done, and will be noisy, but will have the same time restrictions placed on it as have always existed at RAF Brize Norton.  Quiet hours for engine runs will be 8pm to 7am seven days a week with an additional 8.30 to 12:00 quiet period on Sunday mornings.  Exceptional operational requirements may require ground runs outside of these hours but like back at Brize Norton each of these will require written sign off by OC Ops first.

Considerable planning work has been done in the area of traffic to ensure that the extra vehicles in the Fairford area that the operation will create use the best routes available and cause the least disruption to local residents. 


The passengers and freight that will be flown out of Fairford on the RAF’s transport aircraft will still be delivered from all over the country to RAF Brize Norton, they will not be coming directly to Fairford.  This will ensure that the large numbers of vehicles that drive to Brize Norton everyday are kept away from Fairford’s quiet country roads and only a smaller number of pre-planned and controlled journeys are made to Fairford. 

Once at Brize Norton the passengers and freight will be “processed”, re-loaded on to more space efficient vehicles and then driven to Fairford.  The designated routes the ground crew and passenger coaches will use will improve once the Whelford bridge re-opens in late September.  The large number welcoming families and hire cars associated with Brize Norton’s passengers will have no need to come to Fairford so will not affect local traffic levels.


When the freight is processed at Brize Norton it will be packed on to the space efficient pallets used by the aircraft before being driven by lorry to Fairford on a Highways Agency provided route.  The route is designed to keep the lorries away from as many villages and towns as possible and will see them use the A40, A429 and A417 before driving to Fairford from Cricklade.  There will be extra gates opened on the base that will keep the lorries away from as many local villages as possible.

Finally to ensure that local traffic flows as close to normal as possible the base’s Ministry of Defence Police will be patrolling the perimeter roads as they normally do ensuring anyone parked nearby is not causing problems.  They are expecting more visitors to the base because of the visiting aircraft but will not let them cause a nuisance to local residents.

Images on this page are Crown Copyright and information for this article came from the community relations officers of RAF Brize Norton.