Teesside Airport Movements Trip Reports

Strathaven balloon Fiesta 23 - 25 Aug 2019 Richard Bowater

The annual trip to the Strathaven balloon fiesta is now part of our yearly hot air balloon calendar. This year was the 20^th anniversary year for the event. Strathaven for those that don’t know is about 20 miles south of Glasgow just to the West of the M74.

We have always broken the journey with a mug of tea and sandwich at Carlisle airport. Then with thanks to the ground staff a quick look see in the hangars. This year was to be different as the new terminal building with its new ramp and facilities was open and the new Loganair flights were operating by Estonian operator Nyxair. The new terminal has good views of the ramp at each side from a gate and a fence which runs along the boundary, a small lens camera comes in handy for the small link fencing.

When we parked up in the free car park ES-NSD Saab 340 was loading up for its flight whilst sister NSC was parked ready on back-up duty. A first for me was the sight of ZM306 Grob Tutor with its turboprop engine to the left of the terminal 8P-ASD Gulf 650 was parked. ES-NSD departed and so did we.

We moved on to Strathaven checked in at the hotel and then went down to the festival launch field, the wind on the ground wasn’t doing much but at about a thousand feet it was going at a fair pace so flying was postponed for the night and again in the morning.

There is a Strathaven airfield just outside the town with light aircraft but if you want to see jets you have to go to Prestwick or Glasgow. As most people know you have to plan or be lucky at Prestwick. This time I had planned to try and see some stored Norwegian 787s and wasn’t disappointed as there were four in different stages of having engine maintenance. There was also a pair of Ospreys from the US Marines and a bonus KAF343 C17.

Saturday evening the winds allowed us to make a quick flight in G-BYZV or “Ted” from the Strathaven festival field to a farm just north of the town. We then had to get back in time for the night glow. We inflated our balloon G-SNAX Philaes Fogg II for the glow along with eleven others.

Sunday was flyable again so this time was my turn to chase after Ted. They made an approach to Strathaven airfield which was all closed up but then decided to continue to lengthen the flight for a bit more training, eventually landing in a slightly damp field.

Scotland doesn’t have a late August bank so after the flight it was breakfast and time to pack up and depart south. We started with a visit to the now open Strathaven airfield; the owner allows visits after permission is asked. The two hangars contain a number of light aircraft, microlights and flexwings, unfortunately the residents were down on previous years, but still there were a couple of new to me examples.

Then it was back to Carlisle again and we were lucky enough to see both of the resident Saabs fly out. The apron contained a number of light aircraft and a PD 180. That was the end of the trip and back to Teesside.