PHOTO of the DAY...

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
02/12/20


"Photo of the Day" made her way past 400,000 visits yesterday logging just under 600 hits since this time yesterday. Nobody could be more flabbergasted than the bloke who thought the airfield might benefit from a focal or perhaps vocal point where news, information, ideas, history, and aspirations for the future could be gathered. Social media has grown during the Forum's years, it is more sexy, more trendy, more glamorous with its massive usage numbers and unlimited opportunities good and bad. The Forum and "POTD" sails happily along in her own channel with her select crew of almost 600 souls, hopefully she will continue to sail on an even keel into 2021 and the great ocean of possibilities that awaits. A vaccine, recovery, and aviation in all its aspects reaching for the sky..including Blackbushe Airport triumphant in her next mission to the High Court and eliminating the elements who have spent six decades preventing one of the south-east's superior aviation sites from becoming General Aviation's long awaited citadel.

A heart felt "Thank you" to all who visit our pages signed up for 'membership', and contribute in various ways, hopefully our pages will continue to be considered reasonable value for money?

Yesterday, Blackbushe Airport released her "Winter News", the Forum provided details..The Bushe Cafe closing soon, bur rising phoenix like after a month or two providing one and all with "The Blackbushe Cafe", a new and friendly location where good food and friends of Blackbushe will continue to mix. Here's a link to yesterday..... blackbusheairport.proboards.com/post/14738

Today was the day 76 years ago when the name "Blackbushe" was first associated with our airfield. RAF Hartford Bridge had run her term due to confliction with another Hartford Bridge t'up north. RAF Blackbushe appeared at the entrance and so she would be until the end of hostilities when civil aviation realised the huge benefits of a transport airfield so near to London already equipped with the long hard runways bestowed upon our wartime bomber bases. Her pathway to peace was magnificent as the old wartime base faced new challenges. The name Blackbushe Airport has survived to this day despite her taking terrible blows from bureaucracy nationally and over the past decades locally. Extraordinarily that local bureaucracy still delivers all it can in the way if knock out blows fuelled with our money.

Maybe, just maybe, come February the hostility from our cash strapped County Council will feel the knock out blows from Blackbushe - she's ready for the fight - and then we can see the citadel take her rightful place. A citadel's location is on high ground, Blackbushe Airport rests so perfectly on the high ground of the Hartford Bridge Flats. Perfic....






Blackbushe Airport 'yesterday'...






Blackbushe Airport 'today'...





Blackbushe Airport 'tomorrow'...? We celebrated her 75th in great style, hope upon hope for another celebration when long suffering Blackbushe finally gains her liberation from the shameful bonds of bureaucracy?



Meanwhile, please stay safe and stay with the Forum and the welcoming arms of Blackbushe's "Photo of the Day"!!

PB

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
03/12/20


06.00, all of +4C outside with suggestions of "wintery showers" at some point in the near future..the planet maybe warming but not enough to ease the cost of seasonal central heating just yet! The POTD offices are warm enough to permit a few more words according to Blackbushe..One imagines life in Dickensian times having to scratch the day's "POTD" with squeaky quill, flickering candle, aged woolen gloves minus fingers, and a wee Willie Winkie hat to top off the effect. Photos would have been a challenge, Blackbushe would not have been a part of the most fertile imaginations, and imagine distribution of "POTD" to yesterday's 670 POTD visitors spread from here to Australia? Astounding that so many tuned into POTD yesterday, but even more astounding are the massive leaps in technology when Scrooge, with some Dickensian assistance, might have scratched his missives back in 1843, just 177 years ago. 2020 may not have been the best of years, but imagine life with no aviation in the days of "A Christmas Carol", written this month in 1843? Somehow it's hard to visualise "POTD" having the staying power of Dicken's ghostly Christmas tale, we'd have had to write about the ghosts of Blackbushe perhaps?

Time remains one of our great enigmas, where time and space become one, but our somewhat more recent Blackbushe history is far from enigmatic in its quality..

Cast your mind back to 1944. RAF Blackbushe, as it had changed from RAF Hartford Bridge, was having a busy month with not only military aggression toward the enemy but also transport flights when the Dakota's wonderful shape became ever more familiar on the aerodrome.. Blackbushe's perfect location for logistical purposes had not escaped attention in high places. However, the Common Land 'fly in the ointment' landed then as it does today. A survey of airfields that would provide suitable post war civil runways considered Blackbushe as a future major London airport but ruled it out due to the famous eastern end , "Blackbushe east" being on Common Land. BOAC placed a request to operate intended future services overseas from Blackbushe, but the Air Ministry in its infinite wisdom gave them Bournemouth instead with is convenient (?) access to London..

A titbit for conversation might be the fact that in the latter stages of 1944 plans were drawn up to extend the main runway to 9,000ft from its original 6K while a new runway would be built akin to the A30's trajectory through the airfield site..a runway of no less than just under 13,000ft. One can but conjecture on the outcome of Blackbushe Airport had the plans not been shelved!

Looking back at Blackbushe's time we have encyclopedic quantities of history, likewise it could be said the future also holds generous quantities of 'history in the making', it's simply not ours to see 'just yet'..

This day, 3rd December, in 1950 makes interesting recall.. Not wishing to bore you, but on the 'field this day in December, 1950...

Dakotas including Airwork and Zinc Corporation
BAC VIII glider converted from BAC Drone G-ADSB
SANA Halifax freighter
Four engined DH86 "DH Express" G-ACZP of Bowman Ltd
G-AELZ Dart Flittermouse
G-AEWZ Silver City's long term resident DH Dragonfly
G-AFFN Tipsy S2
Various Silver City Bristol Freighters
Airspeed Consuls of Airwork and Silver City
Assorted Vickers Vikings
Tudor 5, William Demster
Silver City DC-4 painted as G-NZAC for the film, "No Highway"
Percival Proctors..

Just a specimen of Blackbushe's varied life forms in the early 1950's..



G-AEWZ Silver City's faithful Dragonfly




Beautiful memories of Britain's post war 'emergency' freight workhorse. Not built for beauty, she worked hard... the Bristol Freighter!




SANA Halifax Freighter. I was about five when these first laid memories of Blackbushe in my head..




The Avro Tudor..




The Viking.. some thirty of these were based at Blackbushe 'over the years'.. the musical delight of her twin Bristol Hercules engines never forgotten.



..don't know about you, but breakfast is calling, the morning paper awaits, hopefully you've still got capacity for Blackbushe and her treasure chest of recall?

PB

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
04/12/20

Elon Musk launched this December by stating that by 2026 the first manned mission to the red Planet, Mars, will have been launched. It could be as early as 2024. A journey of six to eight months, the journey length dependent on the non circular orbits of Earth and Mars. There's a first, the Blackbushe Forum considering the date of mankind's first travel to another planet.. Kind of shows how long Blackbushe has been stagnated by a handful of opponents! Sixty years so far of inexplicable antagonistic politics, the question this poses is will mankind set foot on Mars before Blackbushe Airport is allowed to build some hangars?




Whatever happens on Mars, or when, Blackbushe will at least offer a pleasant and modern facility from which to enjoy her vistas..



Thinking, as one does occasionally, how Blackbushe Airport has allowed herself to play with my life a couple of thoughts from this morning's pre dawn ponderings..




Blackbushe's Terminal and her busy car park during pre Covid sunlit days..




Hampshire County Council care... the doomed east end of the Terminal prior to the Council's Blitzkreig policy.




21st Century Blackbushe, immaculately maintained west of the County Council's 'cut off'..




1962. Farnborough Week. Blackbushe lives, and to prove it we wheeled some flying machines up to the front gate! No thoughts of flying to Mars back then apart from in the well named "Eagle" boys' comic of which I had been a keen consumer... The winter of 61/62 witnessed weekend gatherings of the Blackbushe brave hearts who regardless of conditions worked tirelessly helping the new Airport owner, AVM Bennett, with the task of clearing tons of rubble left by the demolition contractors. Homework buttoned up, I'd leap on my bike eager to get back to the airfield for the day. The ground shown in the photo was an absolute disaster zone, rubble, angle iron sticking out of the ground, old pipes, cables. The Terminal looked in excellent condition, relatively new and untouched by the breakers.. but the surface areas were an unspeakable eyesore. Happy memories persist of becoming a part of the Airport's team of supporters, winter weekends of clear blue skies, frost covering everything, and frozen fingers but at fifteen years old just one thing was predominant - doing all possible to save Blackbushe.






Sadly our enthusiasm to save the airfield was not universal...




But, by nothing short of a miracle, Blackbushe Airport lives on, ready to fight her next legal round in the High Court early next year... She's had a number of owners since 1960, from the AVM, Douglas Arnold and his warbirds to British Car Auctions and their thousands of pre owned vehicles who sold most of the site to the current highly motivated investor group whose plans are yet to be granted the green light.




Of course, if it's a pre-owned motor you're looking for, Blackbushe's west end is now overrun by thousands of 'pre-owned' in BCA's unsightly parking lot, while on the County Council's carefully maintained east end of Blackbushe further examples of pre-owned motor cars may be found..


Mankind has been to the Moon several times, he's now planning to set foot on the Red Planet, throughout the years of manned space flight Blackbushe has awaited lift off and overcoming unspeakable bureaucracy who will not agree to lighting the blue touch paper...

PB

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
05/12/20


Sometimes the early hours of a new day leave the mind a little frazzled or even blank when it comes to finding cerebral activity.. This Saturday morning would so far seem to be proving the point.

"Planefinder" indicates activity in the skies at 06.00 as inbounds to Heathrow still slide into position for their turn on the approach. Somebody is still being paid to fly the routes and enjoy that red eyed wonderment that comes with yet another Atlantic crossing nearing its conclusion. Nostalgia remains high with recall of breakfast in Terminal Three before heading home, the old MG delighting at being set free from the BA car park once again.. Aviation is beset with waves of emotional and nostalgic recall be it from life with big aeroplanes or smaller ones, and of course, where could be more emotion stirring than an airfield whose roots go back to war? Personally, Blackbushe provides the essence of mixed emotions where some of us have first hand recall of the fifties (from a very young age), to present days when one's focus has been finely tuned on the Airport for six long decades.

The movie industry has shown it could provide the mystical ingredients of transportation to a bygone age.. A Disneyesque moment of marvel. On a dark December morning when we know exactly what the airfield looks like today a mystical moment of exactly how the scene looked in December during WW2 would be a revelation, a scene familiar to those who were a part of it would be a huge surprise to the many who know Blackbushe only as a small airfield surrounded by ever growing scrubland, a sad shadow of her former self. A vast flat plateau, hangars, big white Control Tower, expansive Technical Centre, the base living quarters, messes, cinema, bicycles everywhere, aeroplanes ranging from fighters to bombers, and life.. the buzzing activity of an essential 'war machine'.. Such a glimpse for even just a fleeting moment would be fascinating to put it mildly!

However, it's not going to happen, but we can recall more recent moments. Here's some...




Farnborough Week.. The "Reds" would often use Blackbushe airspace during stages of their display while the 'singletons' amused the Farnborough crowds.. Sadly the safety business would seem to have put an end to the aerobatic formation displays that made Farnborough "Farnborough".




A once long term resident "OXO" was a busy Blackbushe user. A flight with Rex Coates in her one evening was quite interesting.. Elevator control became slack to the point where pitch control was mushy and the aeroplane decided to fly a flight path more phugoidal than straight and level. Landing was also interesting as to which phase of the phugoid we were passing when the tyres met the tarmac. Apparently our arrival back on Blackbushe was uneventful.. The problem would, I assume, have been resolved later..




Very early days. Ind Coope's splendid new Aztec B dropped in from time to time during the early 1960's. The photo includes the Airport fire engine of the time, a scary smoke breathing monster. The background conveys the scene before Blackbushe "east" went wild and was allowed to block out our once spectacular views to the east....




The rows of scrap Navy Dragonfly helicopters form the ghastly background, with a Bianchi PPS Jodel from Booker in the foreground, mid shot is G-APCY in her splendid red colours. The Airlines Flying Club comprised of Eagle personnel largely, PCY was another long term Blackbushe resident, famed for some by the decibels that her straight out exhaust stubs produced!! She often spent time providing the Blackbushe Parachute Club with lifts up to 10,000ft when London gave clearance to do so...




A 1960's view from the Terminal's First Floor. Home based were all tied down on the back line back then, military visitors were rare but two came by at the same time on this day... You can tell by the location of the boundary fence across the apron that this room was later destroyed by Hampshire County Council when they mercilessly ripped down the two thirds of the Terminal proclaimed to be on 'Council land'... Shameful butchery of an historic building that had so much potential for future use..




..and finally, another taste of Farnborough Week. The Nomad, a long way from home.. Farnborough Week used to produce visits from Farnborough demonstrators, Blackbushe being close to hand yet free of the congestion of Farnborough and ideal for a more relaxed environment within which to show off your nice new aeroplane to possible purchasers..



That's seen off the early hours of the morning, time to devour the paper and ... breakfast! Enjoy your post lockdown Saturday, hopefully a little more aviation at EGLK this weekend?

Have you noticed the Blackbushe webcam of late? Either the airfield has tilted or some wild life has landed on the camera??

PB

[PB]

"photo of the Day"
06/12/20

Avian flu, Brexit, Covid-19, and the coming of Christmas, the media boys (people) have never had so much to discharge their pens on... On the subject of Christmas and extending goodwill to all men (people) I posted our annual bag of Christmas cards to friends in foreign fields yesterday having plucked up courage to enter the local Post Office masked enough to pass as a modern day Dick Turpin about to take on the shop's Saturday takings! The robbery came with the revelation of how much extending international goodwill was going to cost in all those rather nice stamps the man behind the counter had kindly stuck to each and every envelope.. Hopefully there will be time enough for delivery before the Festive Season finds it feet? Talking of high speed postage, or the hopes of it, on this day in 1975 the first airmail to travel via a supersonic aeroplane found its way aboard a Tupolev Tu-144 flying between Moscow and Alma Ata in the USSR? POTD's FactOTD...

Wearing a mask in public places no longer marks you as the exception but as the rule today. The variety of designs is entertaining, the opportunities endless as to what messages they could deliver. Perhaps a Blackbushe Airport face mask suitably inscribed with a message for the County Council? Make up your own ideas from here on...

A quick drift through time from the photo vaults...




Captured from Airswift's Baron, Blackbushe from the north and her runways that are no more. Well, they're happily still there, you just can't use them. Having flown from every possible Blackbushe runway direction, including the grass strip via Tiger Moth, it's always saddening to see more acres of Blackbushe cut loose and silent runways..




This red beauty certainly cut a dash when viewing the Blackbushe scene.. During the Dash 7's long haul demo tour she happily found time to rest at Blackbushe and give some of us a demo flight too!! Taxiing to depart in a four engined airliner from Blackbushe was the most satisfying experience! Having flown in the Dash 7 on numerous occasions during the Brymon Heathrow/Plymouth/Newquay days her short field capability with a high load and use of a small and basic terminal at Plymouth always spawned ideas of what Blackbushe could be capable of if only. Rolls Royce Aero engines have recently stated their drive will be going more toward the development of smaller engine for regional type aircraft - the future suggesting an upsurge in short haul regional air services post Covid.




Fun times! 1960's Flour bombing competition. The late Reg Venning in his Taylorcraft swoops in on the target. Rex Coates (left) and the late Jack Smith adjudicate... Legendary days! The 'temporary' new Tower attached to the Terminal didn't look too bad back then. The frame work of the AVM's mini hangar can be seen mid photo with Three Counties Aero Club's blue building to the right, including a bit of the Club Rapide..




The apron 1960's style. Notable how aircraft using this treasured tarmac have changed in shape somewhat. The old signals square takes a look in to the left, the wire fence dividing air and land side doing its job.




The way we were.. Robin Page-Blair's resident glider. I think it was a Grunau design but not 100% sure. No doubt the devotees will have an answer? During the early sixties the late Derek Johnson would bring a Tiger Club Tiger Moth tug to Blackbushe for an afternoon's gliding fun. This unusual looking craft logging numerous launches with Derek providing the initial thrust.. Back then I parked my car on the apron quite often to enable nipping around the airfield as necessary, once I'd progressed from my two wheeled transport! The full size Terminal is hard to miss, within which we had full access to all of its many offices, and Passenger Lounge. Those empty offices were so terribly quiet, just the names of prior occupant airlines painted on the frosted glass doors told their story.. The ultimate destruction by Hampshire County Council was desperately painful to behold.. The late Bill Freeman, Airport Manager, and his family's live in caravan were a part of the Blackbushe scene for many years.



..and so the years roll by. Blackbushe Airport remains laden with golden memories for many of us, it's future laden with unbridled hope. Despite avian flu, brexit, and Covid-19, there is no reason to let up long help hopes for Blackbushe when hopefully common sense joins hands with logic and the Airport is finally permitted to show what she is capable of in the way of a show piece for British General Aviation.

PB

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
07/12/20


Season of "Mists and mellow fruitfulness" may be over but judging by weather actuals and forecasts the season of mists is still far from over? The Blackbushe Airport 'Weather Cam' indicating significant visibility reduction at 06.00. Heathrow are offering "FF", ie freezing fog, not fast food, and 300m vis with a base of 200'. Happy memories of one's operational days when fog at LHR could spoil your whole day..

In the 1950's Hounslow's currently fog bound aerodrome would divert its traffic to Blackbushe as the closest alternate when possible. Blackbushe having a far greater 'fog free' record flights from all over would flock onto her welcoming acres, not ideal for passengers when you opt for an alternate but Blackbushe being close to London was far better than other unfoggy alternatives far away..

A snapshot of Blackbushe's fog diversions...
















































Used as a Forum 'header', the epitome of fog free Blackbushe..





..and as the media were keen to point out, Blackbushe Airport had her special weapon..FIDO! You can still see where the FIDO lines were to this day, although Fido at 21st Century Blackbushe tends to be on four legs leaving his evidence on the Common or in decorative plastic bags hanging from branches of the Common's overgrown scrub..


I know you've seen the photos before, but just a collective reminder of Blackbushe at work when others peered through swirling pea soupers of the fifties..

May your day be blessed with good visibility!!

PB

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
08/12/20

8th December, 2020. Vaccine Day!! The first shots of the many will be finding awaiting muscles to go about their incredible business today. A day in history the significance of which will only become clear in months/years to come as and when the curse of 2020 is finally shown the exit to languish where all other defeated viral marauders go. It'll always be there, but the door to human misery will be locked. The toll in human suffering from the disease or its consequences will still cause pain for so many and I'm sure the Forum's collective heart goes to our members who have been affected. Today is the beginning of a long road to recovery.

2021 will slowly progress into a very different year, while from a more local point of view 2021's February will herald two significant occasions. The new "Blackbushe Cafe" will open, the focal point for many who enjoy excellent refreshments and taking in the Blackbushe scene, and perhaps 'slightly' more significant, Blackbushe Airport marches boldly into the Court of Appeal in what we must hope beyond hope will see common sense released, an end to the bureaucratic barrier placed around the airfield for six decades, and 2021 being the year we have dreamed of in more ways than one...




What shape the future? The entire Blackbushe Airport site becoming the wish of some..the wild unkempt wasteland that lies east of her current boundary spreading across the whole airfield in the name of ancient anachronistic decrees?




..or today's Blackbushe maturing into the south's most outstanding affordable General Aviation centre where employment will soar, the local economy will enjoy increased wealth, while new facilities will enhance safety and security, new accommodation for her flying schools and those training for licenses leading to new horizons and a career in the sky, business aviation will flourish, while a new modern Terminal and restaurant will serve our creature comforts, aircraft engineering facilities at last, basically Blackbushe - et al - enjoying the essentials she has been deprived of for so long.

2021 could be a very significant year. Some of us cannot wait much longer, sixty years has been a long wait!!


PB

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
09/12/20


Covid vaccines are working away carrying out their designed duties in hundreds of arms by now. All we need now is Boris to do the business in Brussels, and Blackbushe to bash the bureaucrats in February and 2021 could be another interesting year, but in a somewhat more positive fashion than the one we are just ending?

Glancing over one's shoulder at times long past another glance at Blackbushe 1944 and the months after D-Day... Had you been at the airfield on 7th December a DH80 Dominie would have been seen coming and going on 30 minute jaunts. She was taking cadets from nearby Wellington College for air experience flights, not surprisingly the flights proved very popular..

Today, 9th December, 1944 witnessed the first USAAF unit's arrival at RAF Blackbushe. 17 officers and 44 other ranks arrived. With them arrived 7 C47 Dakotas and the Commanding Officer's personal hack, a Lockheed Lightning. The unit's job was to fly supplies to the battle fronts in Europe and return with wounded troops. The superb Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot being a short road journey to complete their return to friendly soil. The Dakotas were kept fully occupied with their tasks both outbound and inbound. Sadly, both Blackbushe and the Cambridge Military would be closed in the fullness of time

Here endeth today's history lesson..Blackbushe's closure proved not to be totally terminal..




Latter day Dakotas. Doug Arnold's Daks acquired from Spain were quite happy to wear uniforms for their part in producing war movies at Blackbushe..




Tyne Tees Air Charter flew in back in '63 to be repainted for her role in "The Winstone Affair"..




Tyne Tees on arrival..and after they'd washed off the water colour paint for her return back to base!




Joy, 1963, our first Dakota with passengers after the tragic Airport closure in 1960. Somewhere in the vaults I have the same aircraft in almost the same position, but in the fifties when Blackbushe was "Blackbushe"..




Sometimes good things come in two's..Football charter.




"Showtime"..the USAF granted us a Dakota for the Three Counties Aero Club Air Show in the sixties. A wonderful day it was too...




Another airline operation, Eastern took on fuel too! The late Roger Russell handling the hose, Dave Morris takes in the scene second from the left...




..and my baby, BVOL. She belonged to the Army but asked me to get her into the air show business. Moved her to Blackbushe from Farnborough and spent a very enjoyable summer flying to and from numerous air shows including Flying Legends when we joined up with the BBMF for a joint Dakota moment. Sadly the CAA demand for modifications doomed her, the budgets just were too tight for mandatory technical changes.


Much to the surprise of many, following the closure of Blackbushe in May 1960 the magnificent Dakota has graced the airfield on many subsequent days.




The type is getting a little thin on the ground nowadays, but I had to have the Dakota join us for Blackbushe's 75th Anniversary show back in 2017. Here she is, the Mike Woodley Dakota, arriving all the way from Dunsfold.




Sadly, that wonderful sweet sound of a passing Dakota is one becoming less familiar. But, she certainly made an impression on Blackbushe's history between 1942 and 2017 - unless I've missed one slide in since 2017?

PB

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
10/12/20

Of life it is often said there are but two certainties. Taxation and death.

But, between paying taxes and the other 'life event' some individuals go on to the greatest of heights in life. Charles 'Chuck' Yeager was one of those, quite literally... Sadly three days ago Chuck Yeager slipped away from life, the man who from a USAAF private in 1941 flew into the pages of aviation and test flying history. Today's date, 10th December, was a memorable day for Yeager back in 1963. Flying out of Edwards AFB, California, aboard a Lockheed NF-104A Starfighter, modified with a rocket engine for 'exciting' additional thrust he 'zoom' climbed to over 100,000ft. The mission goes as planned until the rocket-propelled NF-104A goes into an uncontrollable yawing and rolling motion. Yeager tries all what he can to recover the plane that is falling back toward the desert below in a flat spin. The mission goes as planned until the rocket-propelled NF-104A reaches 101,595 feet and goes into an uncontrollable yawing and rolling motion. At 8,500 feet, he decides to eject from the uncontrollable Starfighter.

During the separation from the ejection seat he's struck in the face by the rocket nozzle while the combination of the red hot nozzle and oxygen in his helmet produced a flame that burned the left side of his neck and set several parachute cords on fire. He survived and was hospitalised for two weeks. This video gives vivid account of events on 10th December, 1963.






In death Yeager lives on as one of aviation's greats.


1963, down to Earth at Blackbushe the battle for her survival as an aviation attribute was under way, it still is. Hampshire County Council have long proven to be as welcome as a festering boil on the nose in regard to their 'policy' regarding Blackbushe and her demise. The cash strapped County Council have again made it into the media due to their financial activities. Not long ago the County announced the need to cut back on expenses over two year period to the tune of £80,000,000. Essential services would suffer as would the Council Tax payers who fund the County's business. Regardless, the County have continued with their legal campaign to wipe out Blackbushe Airport and committed potentially many thousands of pounds of their legal funds toward High Court action aimed at ending Blackbushe's game.

This week we learn the County Council, having gone to the Government armed with their begging bowl, will receive £3.28million from the Department of Transport to develop 'proposals to support the County's green and healthy Covid-19 recovery'. Aldershot High Street may now look forward to more space for walking and cycling with other 'traffic management' schemes, moveable planters and replacing car parking spaces with seating and bike racks to encourage low traffic neighbourhoods. These changes follow work resulting from an earlier grant of £863,000 for pop-up measures to help us socially distance and walk or cycle our usual daily journeys. One must admire any action that promotes a more healthy lifestyle but will these changes be in line with the needs of road users' needs as life returns to something more akin to 'normal'? Such schemes generally have resulted in chaos and pollution to the point where they are disbanded. Fleet High Street, for example!!

The sad fact is that Hampshire County Council are taking money from the Government whilst at the same time burning off many thousands of pounds in a dumbfounding campaign to kill Blackbushe Airport, a strategic link to future employment, local economic benefits, and essential General Aviation facility.

If they want Blackbushe Airport to revert to a public open space perhaps they should look at the mess they've made of Blackbushe 'east' the relatively small area of eastern Blackbushe sadly under Hampshire County Council ownership. An unmitigated disaster area of mud, tangled overgrowth, and debris from Yateley Parish Councils 1963 destruction programme executed at the same time Chuck Yeager zoomed to 100,000ft and almost paid the ultimate price. How much longer will HCC Tax payers be paying the price Hampshire are willing to pay to destroy Blackbushe Airport?

Remember , the Forum has a Members' comments section if you feel moved to speak..




The 1963 scene at Blackbushe Airport... saved by a miracle, spared, the one remaining component of Blackbushe's civil operations, the Terminal as viewed from the A30. Hampshire County Council decided to destroy two thirds of it in years to come.




Undefeated, 2020, 57 years after the previous photo was taken, Blackbushe continues to serve aviation, provides affordable business aviation facilities, and offers so many opportunities for not only her future but also the local community and economy. WHEN will Hampshire County Council get it? As well as building bike racks in today's car parking spaces they might care to just LOOK at what Blackbushe holds in benefits for the community as an airfield, not as more wild open space of which there is already plenty in the immediate area. Spending hundreds of thousand fighting Blackbushe Airport does not add-up with the need to employ £80,000,000 in Council expense cutbacks while taking more and more from the Government to finance schemes for high street chicanery?


Have a great day..

PB

[PB]

"Photo of the Day"
11/12/20


Quite a change. The BBC News last evening did not major on Covid-19 as its opening gambit, but on something called Brexit, a subject almost forgotten as we have ridden the rigours of lockdowns, tiers, masks, social distancing and Government briefings after which one would require a stiff drink as an antidote. One thing is certain, at this moment certainty as to the future is well out of reach with the exceptions being the miraculous civilisation saving vaccine and festive lights shedding their light across the land. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the last Christmas of the sixty Christmas pasts where Blackbushe Airport has been trapped under the bureaucratic web of intrigue? IF the coming High Court action goes in favour of the Airport's 'freedom' this time next year we might well be seeing some initial changes?

Talking of the BBC News, their Southern news last evening carried updates on British Airways plans to commence operations from Southampton. Seemingly only weekly flights to a range of destinations new for Southampton using suitably small aeroplanes. However, comments made by the BBC reporters in connection with the Airport's wish to extend the runway length included adjectives such as larger/heavier/polluting with regard to the increased take off weights a little extra runway will permit. The climate change issue was also brought in as if a short runway extension will make some significant change to our climatic well being. The media have a ready made way to extol their leanings. Sadly, typically, the council is unable to reach a decision as to whether to permit the runway extension, the decision date has been rolled into 2021. What is it about airfields in Hampshire and bureaucracy??

Interestingly, on a social media avenue yesterday a contributor stated he wished he could have seen Blackbushe "as it once was", namely a very large flat expanse fully equipped for aviation's needs. In fact the comment came following a photograph of the apron and Terminal in 1962 before Yateley Parish Council started digging up the Airport's east end. Indeed, it all looked flat, expansive and neat.. Made me realise how over sixty years the old place has become progressively overgrown, nobody of the younger generations will have a true concept of the Blackbushe 1950's atmosphere and images. Hopefully the Forum has helped bridge some of the gaps, combined with Rob Belcher's publications hopefully something of "..as it once was" has filtered through?




The photo that caused yesterday's remark, "Visiting today it’s hard to imagine what it was once like 🙁"




Indeed, there have been changes..




Some reflections from the apron during the Arnold era....




A meeting of the mighty multi's..




Radials seem less common nowadays..




Useful landing fee, and a view of the east before Council funded scrub land blocked the view..




Farnborough Week, an MU-2, and a still intact Terminal.



Stay well one and all, we've still got a way to go before masks head for the bin and spectacles no longer steam up!

PB