Aste

58°21'38"N 022°26'49"E

runway: 17/35 - 2500x40m - grass (PSP?)

Aste airfield name was an emergency airfield 180 kilometers southwest of Talinn.
The airfield was built by the Soviet Air Force. It was listed on a 1974 Department of Defense Global Navigation Chart (No. 3) as having jet facilities. According to a discussion on Militaar.net (in Estonian) the airfield had some type of PSP plates for runways and some small buildings.


Aste, as seen from the air in 2004

Today the former airfield is little more than a straight track in the woods. Jari Kokkonen mailed me:
"(...) there is not much left to see in there. We drove the strip from south to as far north as possible and returned the same way out. The current condition of the field does not make it possible to use it for  take-offs or landings. It looks like locals use it as a road between Aste and Haamse (as proven by the navigator on his iPhone).
One interesting thing was that all the steel plates used to support the runway has been stolen and taken in other use (e.g. garden fence, walking paths) by the local inhabitants."

Any info on its use -past or present- is greatly appreciated!


View down the former runway in the summer of 2012, as photographed by Jari Kokkonen.


PSP plates can be found abundantly in the area, either as fencing (above) or for walkways trough the area (below). Both photos courtesy of Jari Kokkonen.