Filton Airfield - General Thread

[TheLocalYokel]

Aerospace Bristol

The museum on the Filton airfield site that houses the Bristol Aero Collection and Concorde G-BOAF (the last British Concorde to be built and the last Concorde to fly) amongst other things greeted its 150,000th visitor this week. The museum opened ten months ago and 150,000 visitors were projected for the first 12 months so it is ahead of target.

That's very good news - I shall have to make time to go there. It's only across the other side of the city from where I live.

Antiques Roadshow on BBC1 this evening at 1900 was recorded last May at Aerospace Bristol on the Filton airfield site.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Mass ascent marks launch of Bristol Balloon Fiesta 2019 - in pictures

The mass ascent was to launch this year's Balloon Fiesta

www.bristolpost.co.uk

A mass hot air balloon ascent took place from the old Filton airfield today to launch this year's Bristol International Balloon Fiesta that will take place at Ashton Court on the other side of the city between 8-11 August.

The linked newspaper report contains some spectacular aerial pictures of the Filton site as it is today. It would have made a wonderful airport for Bristol - bigger site than Lulsgate, longer runway and near a major motorway junction and a rail main line, plus a branch line actually going through the site.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Must be as quiet on the local Bristol rag at the moment as it is on aviation web sites. They carry a story asking for Filton (FZO) to be re-opened based on one reader's letter. It will never happen because so much has occurred there in the meantime.

I've only copied it here in order to muse what might have been if Filton had been chosen as Bristol's new airport in the mid 1950s when Whitchurch Airport closed and the former RAF Lulsgate Bottom site opened as the city's airport.

Pros: Bigger site; longer runway; better weather; superior surface connectivity (close to M4/M5 junction and main line railway with a branch line running through the site); no Green Belt restrictions.

Cons: Thousands living around the site; it was an operational works airfield so an accommodation would have to have been reached between the works owners and an airport operator; an application by the owners to turn Filton into a city airport was rejected by the secretary of state following a public enquiry in the mid 1990s, so gaining planning consent for a full-blown airport would have been even more difficult.

With its physical and operational advantages I believe that Filton would have been a better option than Lulsgate despite the cons I've listed. Had the city council opted for north of the city instead of south it might well be that a Bristol Airport at Filton would already be handling 12 mppa.

'Bring Filton Airfield back into use instead of burying it'

"It makes no sense to destroy such a valuable asset to build houses"

www.bristolpost.co.uk