Fylingdales The Early Warning Station 1985 Documentary

Every day at Fylingdales, the Early Warning Missile Base high on the North York Moors near Whitby in North Yorkshire, 5000 space objects come under the day-and-night questioning of 100-ton radar scanners. The basic function of Fylingdales is to alert the West to possible Russian nuclear ballistic attack.
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[@colinstewart1432]

Great Doc.

[@sheldondean7949]

Great, I liked this, being an 80's kid and military brat, my dad was stationed at adak, ak Which at the time was a early warning military station, scary times

[@theaussieburwoodboy9943]

When i tell my children what it was like in 80s...with ww3 on the verge.....they just have this blank look...and say AS IF...

[@WarrenCromartie2]

It's still in use. For a reason. The BBC may have all but stopped talking about it, but the risk of war is still there.

[@justmejie]

True and it's been upgraded the golf balls are gone

[@WarrenCromartie2]

@@justmejie and here we are two months later possibly on the brink of war with Russia. Not sure our EWS would be much use against hypersonic missiles which are designed to evade EWS systems.

[@sglenny001]

@@justmejie noooo

[@joeboyd8702]

Great upload.

[@rogerevans3112]

Looking back today you can look at this in two ways, What a huge money suck or it worked and we didn't have a war.

[@stevemills9982]

Gp Capt Roger Sweatman was tragically killed a few years later whilst flying a Chipmunk as a VR(T) pilot

[@sglenny001]

Jezz

[@paulhunter123]

i hope someones still taking the cavalier down there. prob just a lilds now

[@jamesblood6799]

I don't agree with the protester's we needed this place back then and now, there not very well informed are they, making there own conclusions. Look what Russia is doing now to the Ukraine, who's next ????

[@jacvic0790]

Why, had it been abandoned?

[@dingbat19]

@@jacvic0790 no it’s in use although it got upgraded 2 golf balls are gone and replaced with a hardened central pyramid like radar structure.

[@jacvic0790]

@@dingbat19 oh, so one ball is left, when we went past I saw one of them and was fascinated by the building so I researched it and saw that the balls had been demolished, safe to say I was confused 😂

[@arbrento73]

All three golf balls were removed in the early 90s when the station was upgraded and the current ‘pyramid’ radar was built. They didn’t leave one standing.

[@dingbat19]

@@arbrento73 there is one golf ball looking structure still there actually been there a couple weeks ago

[@garymay8905]

Why not just invite the enemy in for tea , you have showed them every thing else .

[@dungracersintl]

Well, it would seem that way but i think the idea is 1: This is stuff that was mostly available in open sources anyway, and 2: In order to deter you must let the would-be enemy know you have the capability to counter them. This was, as it turns out at least, a very real part of the rationale for what western military organizations chose to make public. Kind of like in the Strangelove movie where the doctor concludes that a doomsday device would be uselsess if it was kept secret.

[@garymay8905]

@@dungracersintl You communist .

[@rogerballs2014]

Do you want to know something, I am 58 years old and all this talk about how we all lived in fear in the 1980s is absolutely rubbish. We didn't simply because there was no threat. I fully expect this comment to be taken off or fail to publish. Don't believe what they tell you. HOWEVER at this precise moment ( 20-2-2024 ) I am as concerned about the threat of nuclear war as my parents were over the Cuban missile crisis . NOW, there is more of a threat of nuclear war than EVER before.

[@dungracersintl]

Well, to be fair, there was an increase in tension in the early eighties (able archer 83 and all that), before Reagan and Gorbachev started getting along properly and cooled things down a little. Granted, some of the things that went down weren´t really publicised or even known until years later so would´t have had any bearing on peoples level of fear - which i thorougly believe was down to each persons individual assesment of the credibility of NATO deterrence vs. Soviet "jumpiness". I am barely old enough to have been aware of these things just before the fall of the USSR, and the way i remeber it there was a certain level of apprehension but overall a confidence that things -probably wouldn´t escalate too far. Here´s writing from scandinavia where the soviet union did not fail to keep their presence known. And yes the situation at present is concering indeed.

[@Gazzab6]

I totally disagree with you. I am 62 and served in the RAF and was stationed at highly strategic early warning sites which involved tracking the Russian aircraft and we felt the threat was very real. Every time the siren sounded on an unannounced alert, we were very nervous and thought this is it. I had many friends that worked at Fylingdales and they felt the same.

[@rogerballs2014]

@@Gazzab6 but there was no ongoing threats as there is today.