Unit History: RAF Holbeach
RAF Holbeach is a Royal Air Force bombing range situated between Boston and Kings Lynn on The Wash, in Lincolnshire, eastern England. It is ’parented’, or looked after by RAF Marham, who use it for their aircraft.
The range provides facilities for RAF and other NATO aircraft to practice dropping bombs and firing their cannon. Targets include several old trawlers which have been beached on the sands of The Wash for this purpose. Towers parallel to the target line are manned and allow the fall of the weapons to be triangulated.
RAF Holbeach also has facilities for scoring strafing runs, using the DelMar Acoustiscore system. The strafing target is a three-metre square net with an orange bullseye made by weaving plastic strips through the chicken-wire net. AcoustiScore is, basically, a precision microphone attached (by radio link or app. one mile of cable) to an electronic counter mounted in the control tower. The microphones are mounted on the ground approximately three metres (diagonally) in front of center of the strafing target, one microphone per target. The microphones sense the supersonic shockwave produced as the bullets pass overhead, and send a pulse to the electronic counter. The microphones are calibrated to "hear" only signals which pass within a small radius, corresponding to the area of the target.
The range provides facilities for RAF and other NATO aircraft to practice dropping bombs and firing their cannon. Targets include several old trawlers which have been beached on the sands of The Wash for this purpose. Towers parallel to the target line are manned and allow the fall of the weapons to be triangulated.
RAF Holbeach also has facilities for scoring strafing runs, using the DelMar Acoustiscore system. The strafing target is a three-metre square net with an orange bullseye made by weaving plastic strips through the chicken-wire net. AcoustiScore is, basically, a precision microphone attached (by radio link or app. one mile of cable) to an electronic counter mounted in the control tower. The microphones are mounted on the ground approximately three metres (diagonally) in front of center of the strafing target, one microphone per target. The microphones sense the supersonic shockwave produced as the bullets pass overhead, and send a pulse to the electronic counter. The microphones are calibrated to "hear" only signals which pass within a small radius, corresponding to the area of the target.
