Airfield Locations

David_Layton · 4 January 2006, 08:26 AM

Last night I was looking at "Project Airfield" in Vol. 6, #1 Over The Front.

This is a very nice research on the locations of the airfields all along the Western Front.

Is there a published source of information which would give the Longitude/Latitude of these locations or would one simply have to find a detailed (in seconds) Mercator Projection map, transpose the airfield locations and measure?

Romani · 8 January 2006, 07:06 AM

The internet is your friend, I just type in the location of the airfield in Michelin road map engine search http://www.viamichelin.fr and it will appear. Sometimes you have to correct spelling, and make educated guesses, for example, I found the locations of all the aerodromes of Jasta 32b , only problem is that you have to type Avançon, not Avanson, and couldn't find St Armand.. maybe it's in Belgium? Given that many times the locations are tiny villages or hamlets, from several possibilities choose the one most fitting.

Zooming in and out you can find the general geographic location, the airfield location in itself doesn't tell much, but if you see is 30 km from Verdun, you see the big picture.

gilles · 10 January 2006, 02:53 AM

You can also try IGN.FR.
It's a commercial site, they sell maps and photos but the search engine is very good, much better than the viamichelin one. Once you have find the complete name or correct spelling at IGN then the Viamichelin search engine will work OK.
Additionally, at IGN.FR, you have the latitude/longitude :
-Type the name of the location in "ma commune" at the bottom right of the homepage, it will give you a list of towns
-Click on the one you are interested (tip: "departements" 02,59,60,62,80 are ok for british front, 51,52,54,55,60,88,90 for french front)
-Choose "les coordonnées de xxxx"

Drawbacks are : it works only for french locations, it knows only "administative" towns or villages, no farm, forest or hamlet.

Hope this helps

gilles

Roser · 30 January 2006, 02:49 AM

Living in the front region I can tell you the OTF study is full of mistakes. I've made a 10 year study on the German airfields in Flanders and N-France. Therefore: don't believe everything about the exact locations. I think it must be an American attitude. Look at Iraq: there they have also problems because they don't know the region but think that they know evereything.

JFM · 30 January 2006, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roser

Living in the front region I can tell you the OTF study is full of mistakes. I've made a 10 year study on the German airfields in Flanders and N-France. Therefore: don't believe everything about the exact locations. I think it must be an American attitude. Look at Iraq: there they have also problems because they don't know the region but think that they know evereything.

IHMO we should avoid broad-brush editorializations irrelevant to the thread.

Is your ten year study available anywhere? I'm interested in your findings.

Roser · 2 February 2006, 10:54 AM

My apologies for my Iraq- sentences. Concerning my study. I'm still looking for an anglish or american publisher. Study is written in English.

Roser

cpirrmann · 11 February 2006, 05:19 PM

Do these have a failry accurate representation of the roads,railroads, rivers and towns that existed during WWI? And, Rosen, occasionally Americans know something, that's why you're not forced to type in German. (twice)