Derby Airport at Burnaston

[Tim in the North East 200]

Whilst the predecessor to East Midlands was in Derbyshire in the 1950s and early 1960s it was the local airport for Nottingham. We had family summer holidays in Guernsey in 1961 and 1962 and flew from Derby Airport in their DC3 Dakota.

Trent ran an early morning coach from Huntingdon Street Bus Station. Check in and baggage drop (44 lbs per person) was in a timber hut before you walked across to the concrete terminal. The plane was waiting alongside on the Tarmac apron, you walked out to board the plane and it taxied out onto the grass runway for take off. Given the plane was unpressurised the cabin crew's first job was to come round with a tray of barley sugar sweets to suck to try and stop your ears popping as the plane climbed to its cruising altitude.

We arrived back at Burnaston after dark - and the grass runway was illuminated by burning oil rags in two lines of upturned dustbin lids!

In those days you could visit the airport and were allowed to walk into the hangars to see the planes. I remember being taken into the flight deck one of their DC4 Argonauts and being told not to pull a particular lever as it retracted the undercarriage.

[broxtowelad 175]

Our family used that airport to go on a holiday to Jersey in the 60's.During the flight the pilot, or his mate, walked down the plane and asked me if I would like to have a look from the front. Obviously I went up and was invited to sit in his seat, which I remember was split, I was fascinated looking at the different controls moving about and how noisy and basic it was. Then when the pilot came back in I vacated his seat and stood behind them looking out of the cockpit screen and just watching what they did. I was beginning to wonder if they had forgotten I was there when they started to make preparations for landing the plane. Just when I was thinking I had better remind them the pilot asked me to pass him a bag of paperwork and then suggested that I should go back to my seat.

[philmayfield 6,115]

My father used to send me there on Saturdays back in the 60's. His company sent parcels to Dublin and I used to park his Jag next to the DC3, weigh the parcels on some crude scales and then pass them up to the pilot. Couldn't do that at East Midlands today!

[Michael Booth 7,364]

It's amazing what you were allowed to do in those days. I can remember my first trip to Hong Kong when I was allowed to show my two little daughters the flight deck.

Isn't it a shame that there's so much you cannot do anymore because of the psychopaths around the World.

[PeverilPeril 3,279]

Tim - thank you for this posting. One of the best for a while.

[Cliff Ton 10,458]

Picture the Past cover Derbyshire as well as Nottinghamshire........and they have quite a few old photos of Burnaston Airfield. http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/frontend.php?&user_keywords=burnaston+airport&operator=AND&town_village=&date_period=&database=&action=search&keywords=Ref_No_increment%2CDisk_No%2CLocal_Accession_No%2CMap_Reference%2CTown_Village%2CLocation%2CTitle%2CDate_of_Image%2CDate_Period%2COther%2CForm_completed_by%2CKey_Terms%2CThemes%2CKeywords%2CPhotographer%2CArtist%2CEngraver%2CPublisher%2CForm_of_Acknowledgment%3BCONTAINS%3B%25burnaston%25%3BAND%3BRef_No_increment%2CDisk_No%2CLocal_Accession_No%2CMap_Reference%2CTown_Village%2CLocation%2CTitle%2CDate_of_Image%2CDate_Period%2COther%2CForm_completed_by%2CKey_Terms%2CThemes%2CKeywords%2CPhotographer%2CArtist%2CEngraver%2CPublisher%2CForm_of_Acknowledgment%3BCONTAINS%3B%25airport%25%3B&page=1&pages=32#rowNumber1

[colly0410 1,181]

It's amazing what you were allowed to do in those days. I can remember my first trip to Hong Kong when I was allowed to show my two little daughters the flight deck.

Isn't it a shame that there's so much you cannot do anymore because of the psychopaths around the World.

So True. I've been on 2 flight decks: An RAF VC10 coming from Guterslogh to Brize Norton. I was looking after the Sergeants kid for him so as his guardian went with him on flight deck visit, this was the only plane carrying passengers on that day as ATC was on strike & only privete VFR & military planes were allowed to fly, we came down to 20,000 feet & flew VFR as soon as in Brit airspace. 2'nd time on a 757 coming back from Tenerife to East Midlnds, that was under French ATC radar control at the time. Don't suppose I'll see another one though..