This place popped up quite a lot during the lockdown last year. It was a place I wanted to see a lot because it looked like a really interesting place to wander about. Lockdown ended and word was they had revealed it up and more security on it so it was forgotten. Then a few pics started leaking out again, so me and man gone wrong decided it’s prob best to go now. I know it’s been heavily visited but I don’t care. You ain’t going to get a training facility come up like this very often on this scale. The place is a bit battered due to a huge cable theft operation after it closed, or was it authorised removal of cable?, I doubt it though. We took the short trek to it and soon found our way into the grounds and into the building. I had been studying the site on maps and we had worked it out into sections. We covered the decaying training rooms first. Then the simulator area, then heading through to the main original tall office block. Then we did the end room what was looked the newest part, then on to the mock planes. I kept checking maps on my phone to were we was going, you can get disoriented in here quite easily. We ended up staying over six hours. I was happy that we went and it was far better and more interesting than I expected. We were expecting to bump into others inside but never saw a soul except for two security guys doing the rounds.
with Heathrow being the busiest airport in the uk and in the top ten in the world, it was fairly obvious trading facilities would be located nearby. One such one was the cranebank facility located next to Heathrow airport. Built in the fifties with the large office block being the original, it was then expanded in future years. I would imagine in the fifties they had no simulators so all training was done in classrooms. The simulator building is a later addition which housed I think ten halls with a simulator in each. All that is left is one very stripped one that was a crew trading simulator. I think the pilot ones were moved or sold off. All trading was covered on the site in practical form or theory. In the mock up planes they would practice for emergencies like a fire and the mock up would be filled with smoke. Or a crash landing and how to get themselves and passengers to safety. The site closed in 2015 and moved and left to the elements and vandals. The site has meant to have been sold for redevelopment, but due to the amount of asbestos inside has not yet happened. From the main office block you can watch the planes take off every few mins. Within siget is the gigantic British airways hangar which was built around the same time as this place but on the airport and still in use. It consists of offices as well and is grade two listed and looks a gigantic beauty from a distance.
starting with the trading rooms these two levels were a fantastic display of decay.
The main corridor.
The canteen for people trading in the classrooms.
Continued..
with Heathrow being the busiest airport in the uk and in the top ten in the world, it was fairly obvious trading facilities would be located nearby. One such one was the cranebank facility located next to Heathrow airport. Built in the fifties with the large office block being the original, it was then expanded in future years. I would imagine in the fifties they had no simulators so all training was done in classrooms. The simulator building is a later addition which housed I think ten halls with a simulator in each. All that is left is one very stripped one that was a crew trading simulator. I think the pilot ones were moved or sold off. All trading was covered on the site in practical form or theory. In the mock up planes they would practice for emergencies like a fire and the mock up would be filled with smoke. Or a crash landing and how to get themselves and passengers to safety. The site closed in 2015 and moved and left to the elements and vandals. The site has meant to have been sold for redevelopment, but due to the amount of asbestos inside has not yet happened. From the main office block you can watch the planes take off every few mins. Within siget is the gigantic British airways hangar which was built around the same time as this place but on the airport and still in use. It consists of offices as well and is grade two listed and looks a gigantic beauty from a distance.
starting with the trading rooms these two levels were a fantastic display of decay.
The main corridor.
The canteen for people trading in the classrooms.
Continued..
