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Parham Model Flying
Club
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| Information on the Parham area |
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| The
Parham Area.
Parham is a small village located near the town of Framlingham, in Suffolk, England. Go back far enough and the village belonged to the Uffords, Earls of Suffolk, one of whom built the church in the 14th century. From them it passed to the Lords Willoughby, of Parham, who built Parham Hall, now a farmhouse. The poet Crabbe lived at Parham Lodge for many years, but the event that really put the area on the map occurred in the middle of 1943, when the large flat and unpopulated area near the village proved ideal for a new base for the rapidly expanding United States Army Air Force. |
| The
Airfield.
The airfield, which was known at the time as Framlingham, or Station 153, but is now known as Parham, had three runways, joined by a perimeter track. Before the building operations were complete the 95th Bomb Group took temporary residence for about a month before moving north to Horham. They were replaced by the 390th Group, bringing their B-17F Flying Fortresses from Orlando, Florida in mid-July 1943. The crews took part in a variety of bombing raids, their targets including ball-bearing factories, oil refineries, V1 launch sites, and German ports. In order to penetrate further into enemy territory, including Berlin, Hungary, Italy and Poland, some missions ended at North African or Russian airfields. It was on one of those Russan stopovers that the group lost several aircraft on the ground in a Luftwaffe raid. The group also took part in the famous raids on the Norwegian heavy water plant in the Telemark area, thought to be part of a German attempt to build an atomic bomb. Parham village itself was on the receiving end on December 26th when, in freezing conditions, one B-17 crashed shortly after take-off, destroying the chapel in the village and killing 9 of the crew. The group carried out its last mission on 20th April 1945, making a total of 300 missions and losing 144 aircraft altogether. Like most of the wartime East Anglian airfields, within a few years the main part of the runways had been dug up to leave just one-track farm roads. On the western edge part of the site continues in use as an airfield for light aircraft. This part was also used occasionally for model aircraft flying long before the Parham Model Flying Club was set up on the opposite side of the airfield. Several airfield buildings still exist, housing small businesses, while a hangar accomodates who knows what for the MoD. The Control Tower is now a museum - see below. |
| The
Club Site.
Parham Model Flying Club's triangular flying site is located on the old airfield, at the intersection of the perimeter track and the eastern end of the (approximately) East-West runway, with car parking and pits on the perimeter track. While the mown grass patch is of limited size, the area around this provides a very large unobstructed flying area, apart from a solitary tree well away from the landing area. The nearest house is hundreds of yards away, but the club encourages members to minimise the noise from their aircraft. The club owns a noise meter and applies the British Model Flying Association noise limits. |
| Parham
Airfield Museum.
The excellent museum website is at www.parhamairfieldmuseum.co.uk/ There are also many other useful references to the museums if you do a Google search. |
The museum is based on the control tower building.
This houses the 390th Bomb Group Memorial Air Museum. Many East Anglian control
towers house similar collections. But in adjacent huts you will find the
rather more unusual Museum of the British Resistance Organisation - the Auxiliary
Units.
The
Wind Farm.
Any visitor to Parham must get the impression this is the world centre of NIMBYism, with hundreds of signs like this one to be seen. Saxon Windpower Limited have applied for permission to build 6 electricity generating wind turbines on the airfield, but this has not gone down too well with the local residents. How would it affect the Model Flying Club? Well, one turbine is planned for the area where we currently fly. A minor adjustment to flight patterns should maintain safe clearances. Only time would tell how much turbulence may be created, as our field is downwind of the turbine sites when the wind is in the prevailing westerly direction. The Suffolk County Council website has excellent coverage of the windfarm proposal, with maps, photos and artist's impressions.
www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/planning/ parhamwindfarmplanningappraisal.pdf
The anti wind farm organisation is at
The main pro-windfarm organisation, supported
by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, has its web coverage of this
site at |
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