Save Wellesbourne airfield EGBW (merged)

It looks like the perfect location for an airport residential development. A hangar at each house, and a taxiway to the runway from the development....

So Silvaire you've read my Msc dissertation on European Airparks then, lol.

I believe I perhaps read a post or two on the subject, but was unaware that there is a whole thesis lurking as backup! :-)))

“Despite some very optimistic voices at Wellesbourne, just look at what’s being done to tenants at Santa Monica, LA’s nicest airport IMHO and the place from which the DC-3 (OK, DC-1) first flew. See http://www.flyingmag.com/major-flight-school-at-santa-monica-airport-to-close?src=SOC&dom=fb

We used to have a saying in my business: “people will do anything for a million pounds”. There’s a bit more than a million at stake at Wellesbourne. Please take note of Duncan’s request!

We flew to Wellesbourne earlier this month and I think it would be a shame to close such a nice and active airfield. Can’t the stakeholders buy the airfield?

Anyway I like to deliver my comment, if possible, but the second link said the page wasn’t found. I’m just on the phone and did not search further but do you have a link to the comments?

The first link leads to a PDF. The second link works for me currently (Firefox).

I too think the stakeholders probably could buy the airfield. I haven’t been there for a year or so but there used to be a nice private jet parked there… not a bottom end model, either. Throw in a few other nice planes and you would think it would be possible.

But the way GA works (in the UK at least, though probably elsewhere too except that elsewhere there is generally some State support for aviation as a transport infrastructure) is that “you” freeload off everybody else, until the facility collapses or is handed over to the property developers

who are H24 circling every airfield, and then “you” moan on pilot forums. This is not intended as a criticism; more as a commentary on human nature. If you want security for the roof over your head, you buy your house, and everybody knows this. But for some reason people expect security for their plane while renting a hangar or an airfield from somebody who is very obviously not making money out of it while dealing with a bickering GA community, while the shark fins are getting ever closer.

It bloody frustrates me… 10 years ago I nearly managed to buy a hangar (for about 220k) for six TB20-sized planes, but some shark got in first and it is now a laundry. A laundry at an airport… I was doing that myself, but six people with half decent planes could have easily scraped together 220k.

But maybe the sharks are just offering too much for anybody to raise that sort of money. Does anyone have the figures?

Last I read, a few weeks ago, there were some aviation businesses there with significant leases and they cannot be shifted unless you get a compulsory purchase order which is probably unlikely. So provided they stick to their guns, the sharks may head for some easier meat elsewhere… until next time.

What I have seen there parked outside and I think two commercial operations, too, I thought it would not be difficult to get the money. After all money is cheap these days and it’s better to pay of a mortgage on the airfield than a rent – even if it takes the next 100 years to do so.

AnthonyQ sent support as suggested. A few years since I last visited, but operators buying up the freehold is probably a major investment. This is quite a large piece of land and infrastructure.

I recall there was a Beech Queen Air still operating, a real grand dame of GA.