About 24 km northwest of the metropolis of Norwich , inwards northward Norfolk , England , lies the abandoned remains of RAF Langham , a quondam Royal Air Force base. Established inwards 1940 every bit an emergency landing Blue Planet , it before long became a satellite station for the larger RAF Bircham Newton together with after , a station inwards its ain right. Being located closed to the North Sea , it became habitation to 1 of the RAF’s Coastal Command Strike Wings , tasked amongst striking High German ships. Now encroached upon past times a grass plain , a few broken buildings , a concrete airstrip together with a mysterious dark concrete dome are all that remains of RAF Langham.
Until a few years agone , nobody knew what the dome was used for. Some thought it was used for dark navigation grooming past times projecting stars on the dome. Others thought it was used every bit a torpedo-attack trainer. Some fifty-fifty suggested that it was built past times Bernard Matthew’s poultry farm to raise turkeys.
Photo credit: Gioconda Beekman/Flickr
The dome was indeed a undercover grooming facility , simply non for torpedo assault or night-time navigation , simply to educate anti-aircraft gunners to shoot downward enemy planes. It was 1 of 43 Dome Trainers built some the country. But the 1 at RAF Langham is entirely 1 of vi that endure today , together with the entirely 1 that is accessible to the public.
The Langham Dome Trainer stands 25 feet tall together with xl feet wide. Projection equipment within the dome played cinema of aircraft together with dive bombers making mock attacks that was projected on the interior walls of the dome. The ikon was moved some the dome using a complicated organization of cameras together with mirrors , amongst amount audio creating a realistic sense for the trainees who sat inwards the gist of the dome amongst an anti-aircraft gun replica.
On firing at the ikon of the attacking aircraft , the replica gun projected flashes of yellowish low-cal onto the wall of the dome , which allowed the teacher to mensurate the accuracy of the shooter. These flashes tin displace entirely live seen past times the teacher together with non past times the trainee because they were made to discovery through a yellowish filter. For its fourth dimension , it was a real sophisticated grooming simulator.
The Dome Trainer was designed past times naval officeholder Henry Stephens. Stephens was sitting at a newsreel theater together with watching a cinema of ground-based gunners firing at aircraft , when he began to wonder how the gunners were trained together with how they could live made to live to a greater extent than effective. Eventually , the thought of the Dome Trainer came to him.
Working amongst Kodak together with Technicolour , Henry Stephens designed the Dome Trainer together with built a state-of-the-art ‘Cinematographic Apparatus’ which projected the stop-frame films onto the interior walls of the dome , to copy the activity of beingness dived-bombed during an enemy attack.
Photo credit: langhamdome.org
How the projection together with gun organization worked , based on a sketch past times Frank Phillipson. Photo credit: langhamdome.org
The showtime Dome Trainer was installed at the Royal Naval Gunnery School , Whale Island , Portsmouth , together with it became a huge success. Eventually , 43 such trainers were built across the UK of Britain together with Northern Republic of Ireland including 1 at Langham which survives today.
Henry Stephen’s excogitation came at a fourth dimension when the allied forces were suffering smashing loses at body of body of water because of the lack of proper anti-aircraft gunnery training. In these early on days of the state of war , untrained anti-aircraft gunners would closed their eyes together with trace the trigger , or fifty-fifty run away. Even those who had experienced attacks from the air inwards the First World War , 20 years before , realized that they were at 1 time facing something far to a greater extent than dangerous. Aircraft were faster , to a greater extent than maneuverable , to a greater extent than heavily armed together with much to a greater extent than hard to defend against.
The excogitation of the Dome Trainer gave the armed services the chance to learn trainee anti-aircraft gunners to overcome their fears together with their instinctive reactions , to rest calm together with to concentrate inwards what was a real life-like , battle situation. Gunners were showtime given theoretical lessons inwards how to aim at a fast-moving target together with and then skillful inwards the Dome. Once gunners became proficient , they were trained amongst alive ammunition firing onto existent targets towed past times aircraft elsewhere on the North Norfolk coast.
The Langham Dome Trainer was listed every bit a Scheduled Ancient Monument inwards 1986. Last yr , the concrete construction was restored , painted over white together with a museum was installed inside.
The museum within the Dome today. Photo credit: www.cbfsim.co.uk
Photo credit: www.cbfsim.co.uk
Photo credit: www.iconicaircraft.co.uk
The dome after it was restored together with painted over. Photo credit: forum.keypublishing.com
The concrete rails of RAF Langham. Photo credit: www.iconicaircraft.co.uk
Buildings of the old air forcefulness base. Photo credit: www.iconicaircraft.co.uk
Sources: World War II Heritage / langhamdome.org / Eastern Daily Press / Wikipedia / BBC