RAF Feltwell

[~Alan~]

I'm sure there is an obvious answer to this ?

If you to the RAF Feltwell main page, look at the Google Earth image and look for the three golf-balls,
Concentrate on the left two golf-balls and look just north of those two and you’ll see a painted
oblong-square apparently painted on tarmac and in that square are a number of other painted icons etc...

What are they for ?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=utf...29044992866644

[JT442]

Cycling or motorbike proficiency.....

[Moggy C]

RAF Feltwell is the schooling centre for all the military families' kids from Lakenheath, Mildenhall and Feltwell itself.

My guess is that those markings are sports related. Probably something to do with the games of rounders or netball the Americans seem so fond of.

Moggy

[ZRX61]

Not sport related, I thinking driving or riding something.

[Deskpilot]

RAF Feltwell is the schooling centre for all the military families' kids from Lakenheath, Mildenhall and Feltwell itself......
Moggy

I'll try for confirmation but my son(RAF) is in charge of training American servicemen to drive on the left, at Mildenhall. I'm not sure about the families.

[Moggy C]

Not all his students appear to listen.

There was a time the Americans were losing more servicemen on the roads of Suffolk than Helmand.

Moggy

[Bmused55]

RAF Feltwell is the schooling centre ....

Ahh, that'll explain the lack of any runways or helipads then.

[Richard gray]

Motorbike training.
pic on here http://www.lakenheath.af.mil/news/st...p?id=123195245
bikers lining up on white line in the square hangars in background.

pic 3 shows golf ball and markings.

[Moggy C]

Feltwell, which dates back to WW1 has never had any runways, it was always a grass field even when operating Lancasters. Its satellite, Methwold, was built with the standard three hard runways, but is now disused.

@Richard. Well spotted on the bike training.

Moggy

[Deskpilot]

Not all his students appear to listen.

There was a time the Americans were losing more servicemen on the roads of Suffolk than Helmand.

Moggy

Glad you said 'was a time' moggy. That'd be before he took over.

[~Alan~]

Motorbike training.
pic on here http://www.lakenheath.af.mil/news/st...p?id=123195245
bikers lining up on white line in the square hangars in background.

pic 3 shows golf ball and markings.

Thanks for solving the mystery

[CharleyJay]

Soooooo I watched a movie called 'echelon conspiracy' which I found interesting.... From that film I found out that echelon is a multi billion dollar prodject that listens to all global communications i was interested in this so i googled it to find it was real! It is run by the NSA gchq Gcsb and other networks it's like a super computer I think it runs on keywords if you say one of them you become a target your convo will be sent to the network thing and you will be listened to live it doesn't matter if you then hang up and call back they now have your number and they won't stop till they have something on you! When i looked into it further I saw what some of the towers looked like and I saw these beach ball things! I live in feltwell right next to these so I recognized them immediately I looked into it further as I've always been curious about this and found out quite a lot! I won't say much more as I've probably said too much already but there ya go! The white ones are listening devices! I'm not too sure about the brown one I think it keeps track of some action in space I'll look into it if anyone is curious! Just thought I'd do a James bond face thought it fitted the situation!

[~Alan~]

For more info on "Echelon", have a look on Youtube for when Mark Thomas
went on a balloon ride over Menwith Hill.

[Moggy C]

The Feltwell balls were originally the visible face of the US Air Force's 5th Space Surveillance Squadron (5 SPSS)

It was part of the USAF's Passive Space Surveillance Network which tracked the physical location of emitting satellites in orbit. This data along with that from other systems was used to adjust the orbits of various satellites and manned vessels (for instance the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station) to reduce the risk of on-orbit collisions.

This unit moved out of Feltwell in 2003.

So it would be believed that they are currently not active, but then this could always be a double-bluff, much as for the fact that security on the base has been greatly relaxed since that time.

Moggy