The German & Iraqi Villages Of England’s Salisbury Plain

I’ve written before about how the British army trains on the fields around
our house, flying big C-130s
overhead and operates two
fake villages (one "German" and one "Iraqi") for further training. Well, the
troops have been busy. Flights keep going over head during the day and night,
very low and very exciting. Last night, I grabbed my oldest son (since he can
stay up late, you know), and we jumped into the Mini to chase down one of the
planes landing nearby, plus so I could finally grab some pics of those villages.
Below, some videos and still shots.

The video above shows one of the planes flying overhead. I’ve posted
still pictures of these
before, but it’s another thing to see them in flight. I was pretty lame finding
where it was at first, so hang in there — it will show up. New camera, really
tiny, I’m still getting used to it.

Here’s one of the approaches to the two villages. It’s about two miles from
the house, and you turn off one of our tiny but paved country roads onto a dirt
road used by tanks and other army vehicles. Our Mini did just fine, thank you
very much.

Watch the video above, and you’ll see one of those C-130s fly to the parachute drop zone near the
villages.

Driving in, here’s the entrance to the Iraqi village:

Closer up:

And some video:

This is a drive into the village. Note the burned out cars. At the end, you’ll
see where the road ends at the German village.

Driving out of the village.

At the outskirts of the village, this shows railroad cars and even a broken
helicopter used for more training.

Below, a shot from afar of the German villages:

And a closer shot: