RAF Kingstown

Kingstown airfield opened in the 1920s and was turned into Carlisle Municipal Airport in the 1930s, being located a little outside of teh city. However, it was underused and was sold to the Air Ministry in 1936 becoming RAF Kingstown and became home to Fairey Battle bombers. The runways though were short and could not be extended and the airfield switched to training use through WWII. The base was initially closed in 1945 but was reactivated in the 1950s as RAF Carlisle serving as a maintenance unit but finally closed to flying in 1957 but remained as an administrative base until 1994 with final closure two years later. Today the area is an industrial estate although there is a memorial commemorating the area's prvious use. The final gate guard that used to be on site is the Phantom that I saw at Solway last year.

Turbulent Display Team crash

Very sorry to hear that one of the Tubulent Display Team aircraft crashed at Stowe Maries air show today. Spectators have praised the speed of response of the emergency teams on hand but the pilot was recovered to hospital with serious injuries. I have seen the team a number of times over the years and they always provide a bit of fun. I certainly hope the pilot makes a full recovery.

DH88 Comet incident

Sad to hear that the Shuttleworth Trust Comet 'Grosvenor House' has crashed on landing at Old Warden. Thankfully the pulot is reported to be OK but the aircraft ended up upside down and there looks to be serious damage to the fuselage at the very least. Time (and money) will tell if it can be restored. Here is the Comet performing at the end of June.

RAF Grangemouth

I was in
Grangemouth a few days ago and there is an impressive memorial area on the edge of the former airfield. I'll let the picture boards tell the story.                                            

Rosehearty Bombing Range

Rosehearty is just along the coast from Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire and was the site of an offshore RAF bombing range from the 1950s. in 1994 a purpose built observation tower was erected at a reported cost of £750,000. It was designed to be bombproof to the degree that the structure, including windows, would resist the blast from a 2,000lb bomb. However, just 6 years later the range ceased operations and the tower was sold, seemingly for just 10% of the cost, and converted in to a private residence.

Duxford - 3rd July

I was passing Duxford with some spare time so called in for a look around. This was what many would term an 'arrivals day' as things were being made ready for the summer airshow over the next couple of days. It meant that there were a few more aircraft around than usual and the place was pretty busy. The sun was out and overall it was a good visit although, in my view, the museum is still something of a mess as the closure of the Land Warfare Hall has meant that many vehicle are now jammed in to hangar display areas and there is an awful lot of clutter. I guess they will get themselves sorted eventually.                                                                  

Over Ickworth

We visited Ickworth House last Monday and I caught these in the overhead - very quick grabs at a distance. Presumably in to or out of Lakenheath.

Corsair sold

The Corsair owned for 40 years by Baptiste Salis has been sold and moved from its base at La Ferte Alais, where I caught it last year, and flown to Agen, still in France. This seems to have upset a lot of people but, at the end of the day, it is up to the owner what he wants to do with it.

Shuttleworth - in the air