Birmingham: Airport Nostalgia

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There was an interesting article in the Birmingham Mail (that's news in itself 🙄 ) about the trials of 3x daily helicopter flights to London and back in the 1950's with the aim of these 'air buses' becoming the regular method of commuting. The helicopter pad was situated in Hay Mills of all places.

British European Airways was tasked with turning the dream into a reality. In 1952 its chief executive confidently predicted that within eight years commuters would be cruising at 150mph in 70-seater helicopters.

In June 1951, Birmingham was chosen for a trial service linking Birmingham and London. There were three flights a day with tickets costing £2/10s single, or £4/10s return.

At our end, the ‘air buses’ operated from a dedicated site on a recreation ground in Hay Mills, three miles from the city centre.

Flight Magazine described the Hay Mills ‘rotorstation’ as “two asphalt touchdown points and a small wooden traffic building.”

The daily flights stopped at Northolt Airport, West London, before reaching Heathrow.

Authors of the University papers, Martin Dodge and Richard Brook are puzzled by the location of Birmingham’s heliport.

“It was only a couple of miles away from Birmingham’s existing airport at Elmdon,” they say. “The location probably matched the ‘make do’ circumstances of the time, contingent on available land that was vaguely suitable.”

The grand plans were scaled down somewhat. The journey from Hay Mills and Northolt took 70 minutes in a Westland-Sikorsky S-51 copter, which could only carry four passengers.
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Full article: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/re ... er-8453230
 
When I was growing up in the 1950s it was often put about that by the time we reached middle age people would be hopping around in their own helicopters in the way that they did with their cars.

Now I'm not particularly impressed with the overall standard of driving so just imagine the same people let loose in their millions in helicopters.

Not BHX but I seem to remember a helicopter link between LHR and LGW, probably in the 1970s.
 
TheLocalYokel said:
When I was growing up in the 1950s it was often put about that by the time we reached middle age people would be hopping around in their own helicopters in the way that they did with their cars.

Now I'm not particularly impressed with the overall standard of driving so just imagine the same people let loose in their millions in helicopters.

Not BHX but I seem to remember a helicopter link between LHR and LGW, probably in the 1970s.
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Yes,I think it was operated by British Caledonian,a Sikorsky S61 if memory serves correctly.
I have noticed how often when driving around the local area you see helicopters in fields close to the roads.If you travel towards Burton on Trent on the A38 there are usually a couple in what seems to be a random field off to the right hand side near to Alrewas.
Not strictly nostalgic I know so apologies for thread drift,but there do seem to be a lot of private helicopters around these days.Perhaps the above story has turned out to be partially true.
 
One for the older members or those with a good memory.
Former BHX regular airline visitor Aviogenex of the former Yugoslavia(now Serbia)has been forced into liquidation by the Serbian government.
The airline used to operate flights to,if I remember correctly,Pula, Split and Ljubljana.The aircraft used were B727-200,B737-200 and Tupolev Tu134s.
More recently the airline just operated charter flights and were down to a single B737-200,YU-ANP which used to be a regular visitor to BHX in the late eighties and early nineties.
Like many charter airlines,particularly from eastern Europe they didn't have a good reputation but they did last unlike many others.
Never nice to see airlines disappear but when they were from days when I was a regular on the grass bank facing the then new terminal and Eurohub it is particularly sad.
RIP Aviogenex :s_cry
 
Brummiegem said:
Never nice to see airlines disappear but when they were from days when I was a regular on the grass bank facing the then new terminal and Eurohub it is particularly sad.
RIP Aviogenex :s_cry
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I spent many a summers day on that grass bank as a kid, I can remember us running down to the bottom to wave at the pilots 🙄 Does anyone remember the lake that was set slightly back towards the car park, I vaguely remember climbing the trees and chasing rabbits.

Interestingly if anyone has Google Earth you can scroll the timeline back to pre 2006 and see the grass bank and lake as they were before the 20's stands were built. If you take it to 1999 there is a Continental DC-10 on stand at the old pier.
 
Before the Balkan conflict of a quarter of a century ago there was a healthy tourist trade from many UK regional airports to what was then Yugoslavia. Aviogenix, Inex-Adria Airways (now Adria Airways of Slovenia) and JAT (now Air Serbia) were the main charter carriers.

We've never really returned to that market from the UK in the volume of the 1980s.
 
I remember the lake,or swamp as we used to call it, as whenever the weather got very hot and dry the stench that used to waft over from there was appalling.
 
kebabselector said:
Great stuff Elmdon74 - a lot from the early 80's when I spent a lot of time at BHX
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You and me - both, i was a regular at Elmdon either on the spiral stairs, down the Joe Ninety, down the Flying Club End or in Swinburns buying post cards, maps etc, i new lost of the regulars and even went on a weekend trip with some from Elmdon.

The good old days 😉

E.
 
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Right then - here is my story and bit of nostalgia -

My first memories of the airport are when i was about 12 i was taken by my late father to Elmdon and we used to stand on the footbridge over the Cov Rd and watch the planes, i was amazed and Hooked for life, my dad did not want to take me by the terminal as he thought we would get in the way.
About 3 years later and i eventually talked my father round to dropping me off at the old terminal and pick me up later, this was on the weekend and normally a Saturday, i soon made friends and we started a small spotter group called - The Junior Jet Club, we made our own little imitation passport type id cards, and soon started to hassle the terminal staff(in a nice way) 😆 into trying to get air side and look over the apron and planes, we had a moderate amount of success with BA and we had a few look overs of a Bac 1-11 on stand and got some safeties etc.
We started to try to congregate and spot from the front circular restaurant, but we always being chased out by the staff, so we had to make use - in all weathers of the spiral stairs.
This was about 1976-77 so i guess i probably bumped into a few on here :friends:, one of the saviors was the staff canteen that allowed most people as log as you brought food/a drink, i remember they had a rather convenient pool table and a few of those gaming tables - Pac Man i think :good: the best aviation shop by miles was also on site - anyone remember Swinburns on Hanger Road? run by a couple with Ron at the helm, i think they had a daughter and she went out with/married a chap who later on ran the aviation shop and compiled the movements sheets, in the new terminal visitor center.
A year or later the local flying clubs moved there aircraft from outside hanger 2, down to the bottom(Cov Rd end) of the apron, and a flying club was built for them, this also had a good pick nick area and again as long as you purchased stuff you could sit inside and spot.
Warwickshire Aero Club was one using this facility and i remember spotters using this area a lot - not to mention when we had Concorde etc.

Anyway that is part one for now, i will continue a trip down memory lane soon, will give you all a chance to stock up with popcorn ready for part two 😉

E.
 
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Right Folks part 2 -

During these happy times of spotting i also had a couple of close friends at my school who were also Aircraft Spotters, and we used to join up for trips to the airport and also regular (Early) trips to Heathrow normally by Flights Coaches - remember them? :good: we often used to jump the bus after school to dash to catch the Air India B707 flights as they often put an unusual version on.

I remember before this setting up a small club with some spotters - we called it The Junior Jet Club, we made some passport type I.D cards and we were often trying to get taken Airside by the BA crew to look over their aircraft on stand, this paid off on one occasion and we got round one of the BA Bac 1-11's we also got some safeties to take home, we used to go around the airlines that were based in Forward House, again trying to get merchandise - post cards etc, one such airline that was always friendly and often gave us stuff was Flying Tigers, even though they didn't fly from brum(Can't remember ever seeing one here)?
We used to pester the staff in the front terminal restaurant to allow us to spot from there, but we were always being chased out, especially when we were trying to get signatures for a spotting building for us, i remember we got a good few including one off a French official, but nothing came from this so we had to make use of the - then only places available - Western End by Cov Road, Spiral Staircase or the Multi Story carpark.
Another place that was opened a while after was above the International lounge - remember that pokey viewing lounge with those horrendous windows that were so no good for photos, and how busy it used to get :s_omg , some of us would often leg it from the spiral stairs or western end, past the long stay car park, past the Metropole down the Cov road towards Cov, then a sharp left down a small road and onto the Joe Ninety Club grounds, this was right by the 33 touchdown and so close to the runway, very exciting when something large landed especially at night i was told, but i never went at night due to other types of people using this dark area 😆
My school chums and i even went on a weekend trip set up by some of the regulars from the airport, this was a fab but manic trip around the whole of the East and South East from Lincolnshire down through Norfolk, Suffolk and coming back through London, we camped it out in tents, i had my 3 man tent but on night 1 it broke so we amped inside the big tent with the rest of the spotting gang, it was fun but just a real rush getting round so many fields and airports so quick, and we did this in a rental Transit Bus as well :s_yes, we made it back to BHX on the sun eve and just time for a bit of spotting and we got our lift home - shattered.

I didn't have much to do with spotting as i went through my late teens-early twenties blame girls/clubs etc and work of course, however when the late 80s arrived i was offered at job at the airport(the new side) i was then working for a handling agent called MAS, at the time 88 there was just the two handling agents at BHX us and Servisair who were basically BA, i had a great season working there as it brought me up and personal with the planes i was for so long just spotting 😀 on one occasion after taking the PAX of a Highlands Airways flight, i was sitting in the cabin chatting with the crew and i was asked if i wanted to fly up to Edinburgh with them as positioning flight, and have transport bring me back the next day, unfortunately i couldn't :crazy: another time while escorting some people on to a flight to Belfast who would normally have to go through strict controls, on this occasion it was the band UB40 who were flying out, anyway they rushed through to board the plane - i rushed after them and was told to stand very still as i had the Special Branch Police guys pointing the guns at me as they couldn't see my works pass.
This was laughed off(eventually) but made me more cautious in future.

Anyway - to give you folks a drink break 😆 i will continue this in part 3.
See you there.... :good:

E.
 
A very enjoyable read bringing back some great memories.

I started going to BHX in the 80's so I'm looking forward to part three :good:
 
On with part 3 - has everyone got their popcorn 😆

So - the 80s became the 90s ans i was in and out with my spotting only doing the odd visit to the airport, normally for something interesting like the cloths charters from Russia involving AN-22 aircraft, i used the multi story to spot from for these as the spiral stairs were kind of - off bounds, i also did a few early jaunts here for the early morning flights as i wanted to log all my Britannia Airways fleet and get the morning AA flight.

During the early 90s i started to put together a couple of book ideas - the first was a military airfield guide, i set my pc up and printer and got hold off all the OS maps i could and started to copy the maps into black and white and did some research on the bases/fields, and started the long process of printing.
It took me about 6 months in total and at the end i had about 80 copies of a A5 binder book listing as many aerodromes as i could do, after a discussion with the chap running the Aviation Hobby Shop at the airport, he liked what i had done and brought the whole lot off me, we also spoke about logs of the airport from the old pre computer days, and he told me they were all still stored at the airport :yahoo:
So i went home a set about another (but much larger idea) :crazy: for a massive book on the airports interesting aircraft, after more chatting with the chap from the airport shop, he put me in touch with one of the assistant airport managers and we arranged to meet up, he showed me all these airport log books that were the landing logs, Fantastic hard back grease proof lined paper pages with comprehensive landing information, from each and every landing and take off including special information on flight details/aircraft status :yahoo: .
He said i could take these books with me but "WOW" there must have been about 2 tons of books taking up the stores shelving, cut a long story short i got a friend with a van to do a couple of trips, then a few hours later my front lounge was full off all these books :shok: my families response was - :shok: :shout: :shok: :shout: :shok: :shout: and mine was a great big - :sorry: :sorry: :sorry: .

Anyway i was given instructions - "In the loft with them or get rid" 😢 up and down the loft ladder - up and down etc etc etc for what seemed like days, till eventually the loft was full of - in my eyes Gold, to my family junk, anyway i slowly brought a box at a time down and went through them, and my idea sprung to life - "Birmingham Airport Diversions" this is what i was going to write and create, a comprehensive book going back as far as i could from the information i had, listing every diversion that Birmingham has handled and why.
This i could see was going to be a Massive task that would require pains taking sifting through every page in every book, and date placing them :crazy: my intention was to copy in rough into a loos leaf A4 binder all the information of just diversion aircraft then put then in date order.
Up and down the ladder i went for each box over months and months (i'm sure i lost weight) after about 12 months i come to the last box, and copied the relevant info from it and put it up away in the loft.
I was now left with about 8 A4 binders full with dated hand written information, showing diversions of all types from about 1956 through to 1995 :yahoo: the next job was to type all this out and display in a more attractive way, this again took some time, but i didn't know what to do with all this work, so again another trip to the airport shop and the chap running it took it all off me.
I do not know to this day what became of it, it could be a book somewhere or just thrown away 😢 😢 😢 .

My last visits to BHX in the 90s were for the Euro 96 matches and all the flights we had, What an amazing time that was, i have never seen so many aircraft at brum except for the occasions back in the snow and fog days, that affected London so bad and we had all those aircraft littering the pan and short runway :yahoo: that was when i saw my first wide bodied jet up close - a BA Tristar through the windows of the old terminal restaurant, it was so big it blocked the light out and reminded me of a huge dinosaur :smile: .
Another fantastic few days for me and no doubt many others was the G8 Summit in 98, I suppose the highlight for me was the two C5 Gally's we had :clapping: as well as the rest of the visitors.

Nothing much happened for me with aviation and BHX after that, i still kept an eye open and an ear open but jsut didn't visit, its such a shame that Aircraft Spotting has been forced away from airports, the way it has, not just a Birmingham but all over the country loosing the Queens Building at Heathrow is something i will never get over, it was like closing down the Bullring.

Anyway - thats about it folks, i hope you have enjoyed my walk down memory lane, i hope you were not to induced to nod off in parts :sorry: we got there in the end.... 😉

Elmdon80slad... :good:
 
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When was little I had a rather fantastic Lego airport which I used to pretend was BHX - a few years later they brought out an even better one which I had for Christmas and when they were both set up I'd got Eurohub and the Main Teminal! I even had th airport monorail which was obviously the MAGLEV, a multi story car park, a little fire station, cargo jets and little private planes on the Elmdon side. I recall the departure boards had flights to Tokyo and Bangkok which was perhaps sighltly over ambitious!
 
I have to say i am quite surprised that i have not had more replies to my rather in depth bit of my history and the airport, i thought it might have woken the memories of a few of the regulars who like me made Elmdon there second home :smile: not to mention the airport and all the little special hide outs there, and not forgetting Swinburn Aviation that was on Hanger Road, this was The shop for all things aviation in the late 70s and early 80s till it moved upstairs to the New Terminal in the visitor center.

Come on chaps i probably new you from the airport -come and say hello 😉

E.
 
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I enjoyed reading it very much but I didn't start going to the airport until the mid 80's and even then I was very young :s_sorry

I've never been what you would call a 'spotter' chasing reg numbers and such but I could sit in the viewing area all day and not get bored. Most of what I can remember starts in the late 80's, walking along the railway footpath with my parents, I remember one occasion an irate local threatened to write off my Dad's car if he didn't move it off the road even though he was parked perfectly legally 😆

We used to stop at the disused railway bridge for a short time (some of the erosion seen now was probably due to us digging in the 'sand' 🙄 ) then we'd walk round to the grass bank and spend most of the day there. The main types I can remember are Orion A300's, Britannia 737's and 767's, the Yugoslavian tour flights, Wardair DC-10's and 747's and of course Concorde. Whenever Concorde was in we'd watch it land from the grassed area then run round to the railway bridge to see it on stand, this was when there used to be two air bridges where Pier B now resides. I think the top floor of the terminal which is now Bar Room Bar used to be called the 'Solihull Suite' and was where all the dignitaries had their reception pre boarding. This was of course before BA had the Eurohub where Concorde went after that.

I did have some old photo's of Concorde along with the 'Sally B' which I took with my very first camera but can't find them anywhere.

Similar to Elmdon80'slad booze, girls and mates meant that I rarely visited for quite a number of years, by the time I started going regularly again we'd got American 767's and Continental DC-10's.

Sorry I haven't got anything more exciting to offer, I much prefer reading tales from those with better stories, and memories, than me :s_yes
 
Hi Ray,

I remember the old footbridge by the rail line - very well, i used to stand there quite a lot with a mate when we were both skiving off work, in the early 90's watching the activities on the apron, but as i explained above i had other commitments that took my time up.
I was still making the trip in my car to the terminal and parking in the short stay, then a quick dash up the lift to the second floor(i think) and into the viewing experience - paid my £1 in and strait into the aviation hobby center for my weekly movements sheet done by the shop owner called Adrian Myatt, then a dash to the windows see what was in and a dash back to the car before the hour was up.
This was about the best i was doing mind you i could see a lot of what was coming in from my house, so spotting was still not bad - certainly not a wash out.

Unlike now all i have is airways and occasional mil jets...

E.
 
Elmdon80slad
I have just posted a picture in the BHX Nostalgia gallery taken from the grassed viewing area at the side of the apron.
 
Seasider said:
Elmdon80slad
I have just posted a picture in the BHX Nostalgia gallery taken from the grassed viewing area at the side of the apron.
Click to expand...

and here it is.... 😉


image.php

Dassault Falcon 20-Oct 1978 D-CADB at BHX, by Seasider, hosted on Forums4airports.com

Geat picture by the way! :hatsoff:
 
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