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Current Status of Amarda Road (Rasgovindpur) Air strip
#1
Following is from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarda_Road_Airstrip .


Quote:Amarda Road Airstrip, also known as Rasgovindpur Airstrip (IATA: IN 0074) is a former wartime airfield located near Rasgovindpur village in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, India.

History
The Amarda Road airstrip, as it was called in war terminology, spreads across an area of nearly 600 acres. Built in the 1940s at a cost of Rs 3 crore, it was eventually abandoned after the war. It was probably named as Amarda Road Airfield because of the nearby Amarda Road railway station. The airfield was used by No. 136 Squadron RAF,[2] No. 177 Squadron RAF[3] and No. 607 Squadron RAF. The 'Air Fighting Training Unit', formed in February 1943, was also based here.

... Aircraft of the RAF and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) would regularly fly from this space to China via Chabua (Dibrugarh), Jorhat and Vijaynagar across the infamous hump route over Arunachal and East Tibet.

Amarda Road and other neighbouring airfields - Dhalbhumgarh, Dudhkundi, Salua, Digri, Salbani and Chakulia - formed a web of airfields created by the Allies to stop the impending Japanese advance in the east. During the war, Amarda Road was, to put it simply, a battle hub. After the war was over, most airfields, including this one, fell into disuse. Today, only the Kalaikunda airstrip, which was declared an Air Force Station in 1954, exists.

Present condition
Eight decades after the base was built, the 11,000 feet (3,400 m) concrete runway is still intact, though the buildings that once cluttered the edges are gone.

There are proposals to renovate the airstrip for future operations under UDAN scheme from 2022.

Key point to note is that its runway is 3,400 meters long. In comparison, as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biju_Patnaik_Airport, the Bhubaneswar airport runway length is 2,743 meters.

Following is a video showing its current shape.

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Current Status of Amarda Road (Rasgovindpur) Air strip - by Chitta - 11-23-2022, 03:06 PM

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