Bristol (BRS) - Nostalgia Thread

[TheLocalYokel]

Reading another forum's post about pleasure flights reminded me that when I was at school at Weston-super-Mare in the 1950s Weston Airport, although I think we knew it as Weston Airfield, was still open and they used to advertise pleasure flights around the bay for 7 shillings and 6 'old' pence (37.5 pence in today's money although inflation would have intruded since then).

In those days I had zero interest in aviation so have no idea what type of aircraft was used. Some of my schoolmates and I determined to go up one day but I never did. I never learned if any of the others did.

Incidentally, Weston Airport was reputedly one end of the busiest air routes in the world for a very brief period in the inter-war years (I suspect as measured by movements, not passenger numbers). The route was to Cardiff (Pengam Moors) which was no more than a short hop across the Severn estuary at the point where it becomes the Bristol Channel. The route was certainly extremely popular, especially for holidaymakers in peak summer when it was a shuttle operation, but whether it really lived up to the title of busiest in the world or anywhere near it I somehow doubt.

The Weston Airfield site is slowly being redeveloped into housing, leisure and industrial units although one aviation link still remains - the Weston Helicopter Museum.

Much later in life I did manage some pleasure flights, including flying on an Air Atlantique DC3 (Dakota) in 1985 from BRS. This airline used to operate pleasure trips from a number of airports. My 30-minute ride took us south to overhead Cheddar, then to Weston, up the Severn estuary coast off Clevedon and Portishead before flying over the middle of Bristol and returning to BRS.

Going a bit further afield but still in the West Country my daughter once got me a pleasure trip in a glider at Nympsfield near Stroud, the home of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Gliding Club. We were towed up by a powered aircraft and spent a delightful 45 minutes riding the thermals off the Cotswold ridge near the River Severn.

After she and her family had moved to Australia over ten years ago she surprised me on one of our visits by driving us to the nearby 'airport' - Torquay (not the Devon one) on Victoria's Great Ocean Road - which was no more than a field with basic facilities although the owners possessed several aircraft of various sizes for pleasure trips. I was introduced to my mount and pilot, a young lad in his early 20s. My steed was a de Havilland Tiger Moth and I enjoyed a wonderful flight along part of the Great Ocean Road coast. As with the glider I was seated in front of the pilot. That was an interesting experience, especially with the glider as the landing approach has to be flown steeply to prevent stalling.

A footnote to my trip was that a few years later our daughter sent us a link to the local Torquay, Victoria newspaper that contained a report and pictures of a Tiger Moth that had encountered a problem and landed on one of the many beaches in the area. Fortunately no-one was hurt and the aircraft was undamaged, but a check of the press picture showed it was the very aircraft I had flown in (I have a CD of my trip provided by the aircraft operators so was able to confirm the aircraft registration).

Anyone else got any pleasure trip memories? -Doesn't have to be BRS-related but if they are that would be good.

 

[Scottie Dog]

I think a Tiger Moth beats the Rapids by DH82 to DH84.....

 

[kraktoa]

Cant beat the tiger moth story but...

Circa 1993 I was visiting my brother who was posted to Geneva. He is a director of a leading Airline. I was living in Belfast then. My brother simply said...fly into Heathrow and I will arrange with the Station manager to put you on an evening flight from LHR to Geneva. There was no ticket provided.

I flew from Belfast to LHR on British Midlands and dutifully turned up at the airline check in desk. When i said I am flying ticket less to Geneva it was met with general mirth. I asked to speak to the station manager who was aware and asked the check in staff to print out a boarding pass.

The conversation was ‘But sir there is no PNR, and we are not allowed to carry passengers on this leg (aircraft had arrived from Asia)’. I hung back and after much discussion and phone calls a boarding pass was printed and lounge access given. When i boarded the plane, the stewardess was surprised. She had never seen a passenger board on LHR to GVA leg. I was not expecting to turn left on the plane but that was where I-was seated.

Still a mystery but after many other stories about airline travel I am not surprised. The top echelons of all major airlines have built a network that helps each other out at the drop of a hat when it comes to scheduled flights and access.

 

[Jerry]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1265583692266835974

 

[Scottie Dog]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1265583692266835974

A truly wonderful experience to fly in.

 

[rollo]

I had the pleasure of couple of short flights on a Dragon Rapide as young child around 1960 they used to do pleasure flights on Sunday afternoon from Elmdon.

Not sure who operated them but would guess Don Everall Travel, happy days.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1248144907077857280

A picture of a crowded open air viewing balcony at the airport, taken in ther 1960s.

Nowadays the new terminal only provides a limited open air viewing terrace that gives partial views of the eastern end of the runway and apron, and it's only accessible from airside.

Prior to the current terminal being opened in 2000 the old terminal building boasted an outdoor viewing area available from landside. It was extremely popular despite aircraft traffic being very sparse compared with today's pre-COVID offering, although I can't remember it being as packed as the picture depicts which might have been taken on a special occasion.

The intimate first-floor viewing area of those days allowed people to wave and shout to friends and relatives making their way across the apron to their aircraft, with a similar opportunity regarding arriving passengers.

The viewing area was immediately outside a restaurant and bar and some people would go to the airport, have a meal and watch the aircraft, although I can never recall anyone being stopped from just going onto the viewing area to plane spot or wave goodbye to departing passengers. Although not a plane spotter, I used the viewing area many times prior to flying out or when seeing someone off.

 

[superking]

Sundays were busy with spotters,always packed with departure pax and arrival pax before they had to go to where ever. I remember 2 young gents always there weekends and they both had passes to more or less where they wanted,these passes were from the airport as a good gesgure for being there every weekend. 1 of the men was disabled so needed a lot of attention.When the old terminal was closed I wondered what happened to these 2 guys. One thing is sure they would never get passes like that now adays. Im sure good old Les had something to do with what they had.

 

[kraktoa]

Another nostalgic question on the twitter feed

 

[superking]

The year of this pic I recon is around 1967 - 1968. I was going on the ford transit diesel in pic parked.

 

[rollo]

Lovely photograph online thing missing is fireman Sam.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Recently I was watching a reconstruction video on YouTube of an incident with a Blue Air A320 flying from Burbank, California to JFK, New York. After take-off the flight crew could not retract the landing gear. They overflew their local base and it was established that the nose wheel was lowered at a ninety degree angle from normal, although the main gear appeared in order.

The captain decided that they would land at Los Angeles (LAX) because of its long runway. In the meantime the crew circled for over two hours to burn off fuel - there is no fuel-dump mechanism on a 320.

By chance there was a tv crew working at LAX and the 320’s situation quickly became national news with up-to-the-minute live tv reports of the developing incident broadcast across the nation. Blue Air aircraft were equipped with satellite tv receivers meaning the passengers were able to view the unfolding drama from inside the troubled aircraft.

Fortunately, the flight crew landed the aircraft at LAX with great skill and there were no casualties.

This reminded me of a Monday morning in January 2007 when a Continental Airlines Boeing 757 from Newark landed at BRS in front of live national tv news cameras.

For the context we have to go back to earlier that winter when work began on resurfacing the BRS runway in a £17 million operation. The work was carried out each night leaving the airport open for traffic at other times.

The period over the New Year and early January was marked by unusually strong winds and frequent heavy rain. During that time a number of landing aircraft experienced braking difficulties and two left the runway. It was feared that the partially renewed runway was the cause of the problems (no doubt memories went back over 20 years when an Iberia Airways A300 aquaplaned when landing on 27 and skidded off the end of the runway and down the steep slope beyond with thankfully no serious injuries to anyone on board).

By the first Friday in January easyJet had raised concerns and withdrew its services temporarily from the airport. The next day (Saturday,) 98 flights diverted and 28 were cancelled involving easyJet, BA Connect, XL, Thomsonfly, Thomas Cook, BH Air, First Choice, Air Malta and SN Brussels. Around 7,000 passengers were diverted to Cardiff and other flights departed from Birmingham.

Astraeus, Aer Arann, Ryanair, Air Southwest, Aurigny, Continental and Flybe continued to use the airport.

The airport had been in contact with the CAA and it was agreed that additional grooving would be cut into the runway. The airport would be closed completely for about 24 hours from early afternoon on the Sunday for the work to take place.

easyJet and other airlines diverted many flights on the Sunday and on the Monday easyJet cancelled 40% of their flights and operated the remainder from Cardiff, although because the airline had no checkin facilities at Cardiff passengers had to check in at Bristol and were later taken to Wales by road.

The work was completed earlier than anticipated and the airport reopened on the Monday morning. Because by then the story had made the national and international news media there was a live national tv news presence at the airport that morning. The first aircraft to land was a Continental Boeing 757 that had flown overnight from Newark - no doubt when it left Newark the crew had made contingency plans to land elsewhere, probably Birmingham. Its arrival went out live on the 24-hour news channel and if the tv people were hoping for a spectacular incident they at least had the consolation of the 757 landing safely on 27 in rain amidst clouds of spray.

Within a day the airport was back to normal operations.

When the runway is resurfaced next time this episode will surely be taken into account.

Sources:

Contemporary reports on the BBC and Guardian web sites

Wikipedia

 

[Ornsack]

Nothing too exciting, but I was going through some old VHS tapes and found twenty whole seconds of footage of departures from 2002 (Yes, it turns out 2002 was the VHS era and not 5 minutes ago)

Not much to see but I thought some might get a kick out of it.

It was my first visit to the new building. Remember being in awe of how spacious it was. Remember the disappointment of not having a decent view of the runway unlike before. Remember being promised a Burger King once we got through security, before discovering it was a before-security vendor (Back when half of the upstairs was before security). But overall it was a much nicer time for us kids back then who didn't have phones to keep us entertained during hours of delays.

 

[Aviador]

Haha very good. Was that you?

 

[Ornsack]

Haha very good. Was that you?

My "little" cousin (Was 14 in the footage, 35 now!).

I know I have lots more from 2004 as I was bored during a long delay. Will try and fish it out!