Coventry / Baginton Airport

morgana, thank you, very interesting read, now you can see why Coventry was top of the hit list.

Hi all I am sure that I have just heard a Dakota fly over head in Holbrooks. Too cloudy to see anything above about twenty feet, but the sound was really good. Douglas DAKOTA C-47 / DC-3 transport aircraft

Hi Philip, hope I can just slip this one in here but move it if you wish. I used to live a stones throw away from the Pearce Air Base here in Perth and they still use the old Hercules for emergency purposes (food supplies and the like). They too have a sound of their own, can always tell when it's passing over.

Hi all Baginton Airport

Glad it's being used for what it was built for aeroplanes. I did hear this on the radio last week. I thought then Philip, good, another bit of our history being saved instead of being demolished and a tourist attraction and somewhere for a day out.

I get a great view of the airport from where I work. Was sort of trying to see a jet take off the other day. I saw it taxing down the runway and turning round ready to take off. Unfortunately it took off when I had just gone off to the other side of the building.

There are proposals in a council paper to construct an electric battery "Gigafactory" on the Coventry airport site. The report is vague on the future of the airport, but I can't see how you can have a large factory with a runway down the middle.

The battery factory plans have just been announced on Radio 4 news. RIP Baginton airport?

Sounds like a good use for an under utilised area. Plenty of small airfields around for light planes based there. Just wondering whether there is a VHS/Betamax issue Electric/Hydrogen though

Sadly Busman, there are now very few airfields remaining for light aircraft. The nearest alternative to Baginton is Wellesbourne and that is very much under threat of being built on with housing. There is nowhere else within a sensible distance from Coventry (I'm a pilot myself). Until the present leaseholder chose to run it down Coventry Airport was a thriving GA airport for passengers and freight as well as training. The Air Ambulance is also based there. The pilots who fly you off to the sun need to be trained somewhere and many thousands have been trained at Baginton. The airfield also provided a freight facility for just-in-time parts for local factories, and for overnight parcels services. Coventry is set to lose a useful amenity that has served the city well in the past, as a fighter base in the war and as a centre of aircraft manufacture. It will be easer to find an alternative site for the "gigafactory" than for a new airport. but, as usual, it's about making money.

As an ex-pilot I agree . Many years ago we had heavy fog, Birmingham as well as many other airports had to shut down, guess what, Coventry stayed open until they could not park any more aircraft , it has a very long runway for a small airport.

Baginton, Coventry Airport was where I had my first flight on a school outing in the early 60's. Later in 1972 I took a few shots of a Hercules being loaded and prepared for take-off including a visit to the cockpit. I somehow doubt we'd be able to do that these days without a crew escort! Here is a small selection!

My memory is that it cannot take anything bigger than a 737-500 due to lack of runway length which is one reason Ryanair et al never became established. I do remember the BA training school doing bumps and landings often at night but again that got canned due to Willenhall residents' noise complaints. I see no reason why the owners should not maximise their return and if this means shutting it down so be it. At some point it will increase the viability of other airfields through increased use and dare I say it higher landing charges

To correct Busman the largest aircraft to have used Coventry Airport has been a A300 freighter which brought in a full load of parts for a local factory. There have also been regular services with B707 aircraft, while Thomsonfly used B757 aircraft on passenger flights to the Med resorts. All considerably bigger than a B737-500. From a purely financial viewpoint I think you'll find that the yield from any regional airport (probably including Birmingham) will be greater if you closed it down and built on the land. That's a simple consequence of airports needing lots of land. Should they all be closed and built on? The real benefits of an airport are more intangible. If you look at jobs as one example, there are currently several hundred jobs at the Parcelforce hub that were created as a spin off from overnight parcel flights from Scotland, Ireland and elsewhere. Even though the Thomsonfly services ceased there are still a significant number of people employed at the TUI office in Westwood Heath as a legacy. In the past Armstrong Whitworth employed more people at Baginton on aircraft construction than will ever be the case with the battery plant or the warehouses that seem to be the fall back plan for the airport. Then there are the aircraft maintenance and flying schools based at the airport, providing jobs that will be lost. What really annoys me though is that the current airport leaseholder (Sir Peter Rigby) acquired the lease of the airport site on the condition that it would remain open as an airport. The lease has a peppercorn rent due to Coventry City Council with a more significant rent to be paid as a percentage of any profit that the airport makes. Despite a great many empty promises Sir Peter has never invested in the airport, indeed he has reduced the facilities to the bare minimum by switching off the radar and every approach aid, removing Air Traffic Control and reducing fire cover to the legal minimum. As a result the airport is unusable for any large aircraft and many tenants (notably West Atlantic with a large fleet of B737 cargo aircraft) have been forced to leave. Of course this ensured that the airport (even in its slimmed down form) is unprofitable allowing Sir Peter to persuade Coventry City Council that a better return will be had by agreeing to remove the "must remain as an airport" clause.

Is this the same company that was looking at the Airport site with a view to its closure?