Aerodromes - Where, When ?

Hi all

Did anyone of the formists ever tried locating a World War 1 aerodrome in France if you where never there ?.

What would really be nice is to list all known aerodromes on a seperate page on this site as you normally find that..."Leutnant X was shot down over Savy Aerodrome on 17 June 1918 or Captain Y died on Bertangles Airfield while trying to land his bullet-riddled plane on 2 September 1918"....and you have no idea where it is.

Would this request be a valid suggestion to Scott ?

Kind regards

Gert

[Darryl]

Hi Gert,

Cam and I are toying loosely with tracking down the Lats and Longs for all of them. There were about 1000 or so aerodromes used during the war, so it would be a long page here.

If you need any specific locations, drop me an Email.

regards

Darryl

Hello Gert. In the book, "The Jasta Pilots," the map of all the airfields used by the various Jastas are listed. Trying to read the small type was a real pain in the eyes. You can also probably get a good idea if you have the MICHELIN Road Atlas of France to go with the book. By the way, a stage of the Tour de France passed through Cappy this year!

[Ira_Silverman]

In Volume 6 No. 1 of Over the Front (1991), H. Hugh Wynne published the results of his "Project Aerodromes." In his 50+ page article, he has 40 some-odd maps of the Western Front, with Aerodrome locations identified for both sides.

It's not the last word on the subject, but a hell of a good start.

VBR,

Ira

Hi again

Thanks for the information guys I'll try and get the books.

Cheers

Gert

Greetings Gert: One of the members of the League of WWI Aviation Historians, has in one issue of Over The Front, mapped all the known airfields of all belligerents and indexed their names with a grid location. My memory tells me there were over 1,000 fields along both sides of the Western Front, so that you can appreciate what a task this was, and to do it to scale. Now how long do you suppose it would take to keystroke in all of the thousands of shootdown sites (with pilot name, aircraft type and disposition) ? Scott Hamilton: have you got that much longevity left in you?Billy H/EOM/9/07/99.

What someone needs to do is produce a large comprehensive poster style map(One piece with a legends and colours) of all Aerodromes and trenches including their establishment and shutdown during the war. I would buy several. I really find it hard when reading a book to imagine areas that conflicts happened - it would be nice to immediately reference on the map. Maybe a job for 'The Aerodrome' you have my vote! or 'over the front staff'. I bet it would sell. I know it's been done with Flying Corps Gold and Red Baron but there are too many pieces and it's not detailed enough. Any ideas on this? What should be on the map (ie: MVR shot down here, Dates, etc)

D. Excell

Hi there

Looking at the response of D. Extell, YES !! A clickable map will do the thing with info like Squadrons at a point in time situated there, CO's, type of machines that operated from it, aces, forced landings and losses and some general info.

It would be very informative.

Regards

Gert

It sounds like a real good idea, but also a real tough one to realise... But I'm pro.

Adriaan