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UK General Aviation Strategic Network Survey 2020

If your aerodrome is on the UK DFT’s radar you may have received this invitation to contribute data. But if your landing site is one of hundreds of UK airfields which are not on any public record, you may still wish to contribute. The more the merrier…

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

I think a lot of private airfields would be well advised to keep quiet and not be on anyone’s database.

UK, United Kingdom

Fenland_Flyer wrote:

I think a lot of private airfields would be well advised to keep quiet and not be on anyone’s database.

Always happy with 5 big ones that are arm open than 100 small by invitation only !
I really don’t get bothered when a “strictly private airfield” get sold or built up

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I think a lot of private airfields would be well advised to keep quiet and not be on anyone’s database.

As the owner of one of the busiest airfields in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbrightshire, I disagree very strongly.

When we established our aerodrome some ten years ago we were completely open about it. We talked to our neighbours. We informed the CAA/NATS, Jeppesen and all the VFR guides. We drew up a voluntary safeguarding map and submitted it to our local planning department.

We did not apply for planning consent but we did read and take advice on the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992, as amended.

Always happy with 5 big ones that are arm open than 100 small by invitation only !

Again, I disagree completely. But then I do use my airplane as a substitute for terrestrial transport, not only for fun (don’t get me wrong, I like flying for fun too!). If I’m flying somewhere I want to land there, not two, ten or twenty miles away. Even with big airports (which seldom seem to be anywhere close to where I want to go) it seems to me to be good airmanship to text or phone so ATC can make a “strip”. At small airfields, it’s also good manners to call but when folk land at a “private” field without asking, what do you think country people do? Do we put the kettle on and offer a brew or do you think we’re going to rush out brandishing our Remington 870 skeet guns?

If there’s no “airfield” where I’m going, I just pick a nice looking field on Google Earth and call the owner. I’ve never been refused permission, and on more than one occasion the owner has offered to move big bales of hay or silage on a freshly mown field for me.

But some people are uneasy about landing on a place where no other airplane has landed before, so for GA to work as a means of transport, we need as many small aerodromes as possible.

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

Jacko wrote:

we need as many small aerodromes as possible.

Absolutely agree. However every local authority, be it district or county, may have a very different view to what you might expect. Look at the history of Cambridgeshire County Council if you need an example. Some years ago it was reported that this Council wished to pass a regulation banning overflying of any part of the county and they appear to have singled out ANY airfield for housing development. It, and so many others, seem oblivious to the fact that housing can essentially be built anywhere, even in small developments, but an airfield is constrained by geography.

UK, United Kingdom

This survey doesn’t seem to take into account situations where the interests of the airfield owner do not align with those of aviators or GA.

EGTF, LFTF

The “strategic network” will become somewhat irrelevant if the CAA infringements “team” continues their new pilot busting policy.

Otherwise, the best thing the govt could do is to prevent property sharks circling airfields. I recall talking to one transport minister at some conference, maybe 10 years ago, when they said they had a plan for this, but nothing came of it AFAIK. Classification as green rather than brown would frustrate conversion to housing estates, which most would say is a good thing, but an airfield cannot survive on landing fees alone especially in the UK climate where the GA chat sites carry constant campaigns to boycott any place over £10… so they need commercial property, and it’s going to be harder to establish that in a green field site. Existing business uses are ok, of course.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Cambridge posts moved here

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom
9 Posts
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