Dome Trainer, Langham Airfield

The ‘Dome Trainer’, is a concrete hemisphere dating to 1943 and one of about 40 originally built and only one of a handful to survive. The dome was a training aid for ground-to-air gunnery. Projection equipment inside the structure played film of aircraft making mock attacks and which moved around the interior via cameras and mirrors – all with realistic sound. The serviceman sat at a mock anti-aircraft gun and had to shoot at the plane, while an instructor could measure the accuracy of the shooter by the presence of yellow lights projected onto the interior of the dome. Once gunners became proficient, they moved onto real targets being towed by aircraft elsewhere on the North Norfolk coast.

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