HIDING IN PLANE SIGHT

The secret military airbases hidden around the world ready for use if war breaks out

In 1984, NATO forces landed fighter jets on an autobahn in West Germany at height of Cold War
  

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A C-130 Hercules aircraft landing on the autobahn in Ahlhorn, West Germany, March 28, 1984

INCREDIBLE footage shows a military fighter jet landing on a rain-soaked public motorway.

This astonishing clip shows a specially designed German highway, or autobahn, which cleverly doubles as a landing strip in case the country’s air bases are taken out in the event of war.

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The A29 autobahn in Germany also doubles as an airfield

Filmed in 1984, the video was taken when NATO forces commandeered an entire autobahn, near Ahlhorn in northwest Germany, for 48 hours.
A mobile air traffic control tower was wheeled in as Hercules transports and Tornado jets practised their landing skills just yards from an overpass.
First established during the Cold War, highway strips took advantage of Germany’s pioneering autobahn network.
Warplanes could be parked in bushes, next to the highway, ready to take off in minutes.

  

     

Another example is the A44 autobahn in central Germany which links the industrial and heavily populated Rhine-Ruhr region to the country’s heartland.
Located near the small town of Buren, the A44 doubles as a secret military runway ready and waiting for war to be declared.
The road’s usual gentle curves die away and are replaced by dead straights; the grassy median strip disappears, uncovering a centre runway line.
And, off to the side, what looks like a large parking lot is actually an aircraft parking bay.
Germany is not alone in having highway strips. They also exist, equally unnoticed, in Switzerland, Poland, Singapore, Taiwan and Finland.

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The German air force uses an autobahn as a runway. Junkers and Messerschmitt aircraft are hidden in the woods alongside the motorway

Australia too has a small number of roads that, in just moments, can be turned into runways.
The latest country to sign up for roads-turned-runways is India.
Last year, the country’s transport minister, Nitin Gadkari, said they could be a boon for civilian air travel.
“We can close road traffic when a plane lands and open once the plane has taken off. Airport investment costs would come down as the road will also be used as an airstrip,” he told Bloomberg.
But Srikanth Ramakrishnan, a journalist with Swarajya magazine, pondered whether a military use was more likely. Indeed, in 2015, an Indian Mirage jet landed on a motorway outside Delhi.
Finland annually tests its runway freeways. Last year, it even invited the Swedes to land some of their planes on a main road north of Helsinki.

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An A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft lands on the autobahn in Germany

The Finns haven’t just modified their highways for planes, their planes have modifications that suit highways.
“[The aircraft’s] folding wings have turned out as a useful feature during taxi on narrow roads,” remarked the Finnish air force.
The heavily built city-state of Singapore conducted exercises late last year landing fighter jets on urban streets.
It took 48 hours to remove the road’s lampposts, traffic lights, bus stops, road signs and guardrails.
In November, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said: “One hundred and 10 airman and women converted the 1.5 mile and just 78-foot wide Lim Chu Kang Road into a runway.
“And included a mobile air traffic control tower, runway lights, distance markers and arrestor gear for fighter planes to hook and stop in time.
“Easy to say but hard to do.”
(The Sun, UK)

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