In Tom Clancy's fictional account of World War III, Red Storm Rising, the world's future finally hinges on a ferocious battle between US and Soviet forces in Iceland. It was considered visionary in tech-terms but has been somewhat overtaken by events geopolitically, and last weekend all but a handful of Americans finally quit what had once been a 5,000-strong garrison.
When I flew out of Keflavik Airport near Reykjavik, which more or less shares the same site as the base, this morning, I witnessed the rows and rows of deserted buildings that until recently made up what was essentially a small town. Only a single C-17 and what I think was a Lockheed ER-2, though I'm not sure, were on the ramp.
The US has left an awful lot of stuff behind and Iceland is trying to work out what to do with it. Part of that involves divvying up the scrap, but there is the more interesting question of what to do with the scores of buildings, many of which are in perfect condition, and in particular a couple of high quality hangars.
The CEO of the airfield itself (and part of the problem is that the military used to look after the airfield operationally together with the Icelandic authorities, while the commercial terminal is run by a whole other government department) - Bjorn Ingi Knutsson, was explaining to interested parties that one problem was that the whole US area has 110v electrical wiring, instead of the 220v in the rest of Iceland! I can sympathise with that - the people who used to own my house left some pretty awful DIY behind too.
Rather more seriously, the US military (and Iceland hasn't got a military of its own to speak of) were the only people operating the primary radar - that's the one that works just by bouncing its beam off aircraft rather than the secondary radar used by air traffic control that relies on the aircraft transponder. So now anyone without a transponder doesn't get seen. Which is how in the last few days a surprised overflying Continental Airlines pilot came to report to Iceland ATC that he'd just seen two Russian Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack bombers fly past him at about 40,000ft. Turns out the Russians had told everyone they'd be operating in the vicinity, but even in peacetime they don't use transponders and so nobody could see them on radar.
Anyway, although Iceland may look a little vulnerable right now, part of the deal is that the US has pledged to come to its immediate aid at any time it needs it. Unless it joins the axis of evil or something like that.
Iceland is of course the sort of isolated place that has aviation in its soul, and I met photographer Baldur Sveinsson who has spent much of his life chronicling the incredible variety of aircraft that have come and gone there, helped by Iceland's liquid white sunshine. He took this shot of two Hawker Hunters, looking like something out of the Cold War themselves, surprisingly recently. You can read about it here.
Baldur is a man on a mission by the way - perhaps you can help him. He is trying to collect in-service histories and photographs of every one of the 820 or so Lockheed P-2V Neptunes built. So far he's only got about 2,200 pictures, and they're here. I asked him why he's doing it. "It's an, umm..." he said, his English struggling. "Obsession?" I suggested - "yes, obsession", he grinned.
Strange guy, why doesn't he collect information on all the Armstrong Whitworth Argosies in the world, like any normal person?
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