A Norwegain RV visiting a former secret Swedish fighter base

[ao.frog]

Hi all.

A few weeks back the wifey and me flew down to a Fly Inn at Save Airport close to Gothenburg in the SW Sweden.

This place was built in the -50's and used to be a AFB belonging to the Swedish AF where they operated fighters from for many years.
When their AF was scaled down, the AFB was handed over to civilan use and this Fly Inn was the first oppurtunity for the public to see the former secret underground facilities. It contains several hangars, offices, resting quarters, maintenance ares etc etc. In short; a complete selfcontained AFB underneath a mountain.
It's now turned into an air museum.

I'm writing this post not only to show you how it looks, but also to tell you how INCREDIBLY STUPID a politician can be! At least from a pilots point of view that is... more about that at the end of the post.

First a view of part of the Fly Inn area:








And here our trusty RV parked where the taxiway leads in to the underground area. You can see it just in front of the leading edge of the VS.

Norway and Sweden are very good neighbours, but if I'd taken the following pics 10-15 years ago, I bet that both we and the RV would've been put away by the Swedes for a looong time....










And here is the entrance to the underground:








Here is the underground path leading down underneath the mountain:








And here we are down in the squadron areas. We now are below the ocean level. The AFB is close to the coast so the required depth put the facility this deep down.

The aircraft you see in the background is "Lansen", a early Swedish fighter.








And here is the "Draken" fighter:







And here's the famous Viggen:




This fighter was built in many versions, both Air-To-Ground and Air-To-Air.
It was a great plane with STOL capabilities. It had even reverse thrust for short landing distances.

Here is it's cockpit:




This facility was built in the early -50's and I must say they did a pretty nice job! They didn't quite use only showel and spade, but they sure didn't have all the nice equipment engineers use today when they make big holes in the mountains...

Anyway, back to the subject: When the AF withdrew from the areas, the question came up about what to do with it.
The civilan aeroclub wanted to take over ofcourse, but then a politican came up with a suggestion: "Let's fill it with sand".....

I can't believe a person with a sound mind would come up with a sollution like this, but it is very true! At least according to the local flying club members we talked to.

The suggestion was almost made real too, but luckily the local aeroclub managed to cancel the sandproject and got the hole facility as theirs to use.
Here they build planes, rebuild planes, keep them in storage and have their meetings.

Maybe someone from Sweden could chime in with more facts?

Anyway; I'm glad this place can be of use for the GA and experimental community, and that the public can have a very fine airmuseum.

BIG THANKS to the guys in the aeroclub who managed to stop the "Sand-madness"....

[Jamie Aust]

Thank you for the post. Cool read.

[Gary Baker]

I always enjoy your travel reports

How is the other RV coming?

[nucleus]

Very interesting! Now the flying club has a bat cave!

H

[Ted Johns]

...but luckily the local aeroclub managed to cancel the sandproject and got the hole facility as theirs to use.

I love it when someone for whom English is a second language makes an excellent pun. Kudos to you sir!

[chinch]

...by the piping structures shown in the fourth photo and what they may have been used for. They repeat down the tunnel at regular intervals. Given what looks like burn patterns on the wall surrounded by the pipe framework, my guess is that this is where the aircraft would do startups/runups - with the engine nozzles against the wall, and that the piping structures spray water for cooling?

That's my wild a** guess - anyone else?

[hendrik]

Originally Posted by chinch

...by the piping structures shown in the fourth photo and what they may have been used for. They repeat down the tunnel at regular intervals. Given what looks like burn patterns on the wall surrounded by the pipe framework, my guess is that this is where the aircraft would do startups/runups - with the engine nozzles against the wall, and that the piping structures spray water for cooling?

Those hangars always had and still have a very strict no fire, no smoking policy. What you call burn patterns is simply the bare rock which is darker than the surrounding painted concrete. Definitely no startups down there. The pipes are part of an impressive water sprinkling system for fire protection. In the picture below you can see not just the nozzles on the ceiling, but also nozzles close to the ground (painted red) that spray almost horizontally and are also fed from the main tubing at the center of the ceiling, like all the nozzles on the ceiling. You can also see another nozzle on top of the lowest horizontal feed line, spraying sideways.

[ao.frog]

Gary: I've sent you a PM.

Regards Alf Olav