South Yorkshire Trip - Richard Bowater
The main target of
the trip was to go to Humberside and see a Kenn Borek air Turbo
DC 3 fly. I have never seen an example of turbo DC 3 only just
missed a few flying near to my house transiting to the world.
After a quick phone call I found out the operational hours and
planned the trip.
Doncaster was
first and as expected it was quiet, a couple of Pa 31s were
shuffled about at 2excel and the Children’s air ambulance was
parked out. Up at the terminal two Tui 738s were parked along
with a Wizz Air UK A321.
The only visitor of
note was G-OUEG BD-700 which was parked in a spot that was out
of reach of my camera. The Citation centre
has now closed so nothing parked out there either.
Sandtoft was
the next airfield on the route, somewhere I hadn’t been for
quite some time even before covid. The reception was friendly
and a look around the airfield was granted. The rear of the
large hangar used to have various bits of aircraft including a
DC-3 which is now at the Doncaster museum and parts of an Avro
Lincoln. This time Pa38 G-MSFC lay in bits and a restoration
project Pa 31 G-BWDE fuselage was awaiting its turn in the
hangar.
The main parking area
is beside the hangar and this contained a mix of UK and American
registered light aircraft. G-BKJW Pa 27 was amongst them an
aircraft that used to visit Teesside. It is
included in the aircraft mishaps as it once had a nose wheel
collapse back in the 80s. The rest were a mix of British and
American registered with a number prefixed N/UK.
The hangar was
tightly packed so access was limited to the front and side. Ce
337 N337UK was in the rear, an assortment of other aircraft were
under maintenance in front.
With restricted
flying only one visitor was observed R-44 G-LINY and a resident
Cessna departed, let’s hope aviation can soon get up and running
again and make the airfields busy again.
I had planned to go
further South at this point to Hibaldstow, Kirton Lindsay and
Wickenby but due to an accident on the M180 I decided to go
straight to Humberside which took some time due to a diversion.
Humberside, I
had not been since I visited with Ian Ellington to see a
Bristow’s Nigerian ERJ 145 in February 2018. At first I thought
the DC-3 had departed as it wasn’t visible from the airport
entrance but thankfully it was parked on the Eastern airways
ramp.
The road to the
airport fire station allows views of the corners were various
aircraft park. Only Eastern Airlines aircraft were visible, a
number of parked Jetstream 41 aircraft in various states, two
ERJ-145s and the current G-CGMC ERJ-135. One of the ex
Brindabella Airlines Australian J41s is missing
presumed being either dismantled or made ready to return to
flight. A single ATR-72 was also parked.
The departure time
that I had seemed to be correct as the DC-3 was fuelled up and
preparing to start. I ventured to the Southside of the airport
and discovered you can walk to the perimeter fence for excellent
departure and landing shots.
The DC-3 got as far
as the runway hold as D-BSUN Do 328 Jet of Sun Air was on the
approach so as soon as that was clear the DC-3 went to the far
end of the runway and eventually took off. The turboprop engines
make you think it’s a Beech 200 instead of the traditional
radial engines.
The sun was still
quite high so I decided to visit one of my planned targets
Wickenby to
see G-CJSB vintage Republic RC-3 Seabee which is parked on the
airfield. I hadn’t been to Wickenby since 2009 when we had a hot
air balloon event there. Things had changed a bit with the Skunk
works moving from the large hangar at the bottom of the airfield
to its current location on the entrance road.
With a bit more time I think another five
or six airfields could have been visited on the way home.