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:
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Thought you might be interested to a gallery of pics that I’ve collected during many visits to Salisbury Plain:
http://www.scottwylie.co.uk/salisbury-plain/
That german town looks almost exactly like a training ground in a book called the “Illustrated Manual of Sniper Skills”. I think its the same one but you cant see that iraqi village from the picture in the book