Information - RAF Coningsby Explosive Storage Area.

[Paul Ellis]

I have just found the article on the above site. I worked at this site from 1971 to 1974 and it was my first RAF posting as an RAF Armourer in 1971. At that time Coningsby was flying the F4 Phantom and the ESA was used for all weapon generation and storage associated with the F4 including all of the ground equipment servicing and the maintenance of the Vulcan 5 barreled aircraft mounted gun. The site was originally built for storage of nuclear weapons when Coningsby housed the Vulcan bombers. At that time it would have been fully guarded with trip flares between the outer and inner fences, there would also have been a police dog guard , these were housed at a facility of site at Tattershall Thorpe. There was an accident in 1971 involving a 68mm SNEB rocket , it was caused by the unauthorized use of a piece of electrical equipment used to select the next tube to fire, this was done so that the pod could be loaded with 6 rockets instead of a full complement of 18 when being used for practice on the ranges. Two people were seriously hurt, the first who was behind the pod, he was the one who initiated the firing and the second was in front when it went off, the first suffered from severe burns, the second lost a leg and a thumb if my memory is correct, as far as I know both survived but needless to say they never returned to work.
The ESA seemed to have been abandoned after the airfield was refitted to take the Typhoon aircraft when all of the new hardened shelters were built. I certainly recognize some of the buildings but a lot were altered after my time, the site has since been sold and is now in the hands of a civilian company but I have no idea what it is being used for. I have driven past since it was sold and a lot of work has been done to restore to use a lot of the buildings that were wrecked by people looking for scrap, they have also now demolished the very large standby generator house that is shown in the photo set, this dated back to its nuclear days when they for security reasons could not afford to be affected by power cuts. I'm glad the old place has now found a new life as it was always very sad to see it in such a bad state of repair, I have a lot of happy memories from my time there especially as a lot of the people that I served with are probably no longer with us.

 

[Mikeymutt🐶]

Really enjoyed reading that. Funny was looking at my photos last night of this place and was going to do a back date report on it. The trident class submarines sort of made this set up short lived. You can certainly tell by the more complex set up that it was designed compared to other bomb dumps. The only other one I have seen in scale and if not a lot bigger is Woodbridge. But that was a tactical fighter base.

 

[Paul Ellis]

As this was my first ever "RAF posting" I have much stronger memories of it than almost any of my other postings. I did manage a couple of years ago to get back inside for a look around it was rather sad to see all the various building in such a sorry state.
The shed marked "Missile Bay" was where I worked but in my day it was where we serviced all of the wing pylons, the "7A" Sparrow missile launchers of which there were four on the Phantom as well as the "27A" center fuselage ejector release unit. Other items that we were responsible for were the 68mm SNEB rocket pods and the triple 1000lb bomb ejector release racks that could be carried on the wing pylons.
Fully loaded the F4 Phantom was a sight to behold especially when it had the Vulcan gun fitted to the center line station.
I did not see any pictures of the series of doors in a semi circle that ran around the edge of the road, behind each one of these doors was a small room that in its nuclear days would have housed a warhead in a specially constructed mount in the floor. The doors to these rooms were obviously very high security with safe style combination locks, in my day we used one as a paint store!!!
The F4 Phantom was in true British style used as a multi role aircraft that could be configured in either a ground attack or air defense role so there was a stock of both bombs and missiles stored there.
When needed there were prepared on site on trollies and then towed to the flight line at the other end of the airfield, a fairly simple job in those days before the advent of "smart" bombs and all that now goes with it.
Next time I am back in the area I will try and find out what the site is now being used for, one thing is for sure there must be thousands of tons of concrete under the grass and to clear would be very expensive so I don't think it will be made into a new housing development any time soon!!!!!