Old Airliners /Airports etc

[Tim in the North East 200]

My first ever flights were in Summer 1961 and 1962 with Derby Airways from Burnaston to Guernsey. We travelled to Burnaston on the Trent shuttle bus from Huntington Street Bus Station. Check in at Burnaston was leisurely - having the luggage weighed in on scales with big rotary dials in a wooden building, then walk across a terrace with flowerbeds into the brick and concrete 'terminal' for refreshments. Then a walk down a few steps onto the concrete apron and all aboard the Dakota - which then taxied onto the grass runway for a bumpy take off. The ascent was fairly gradual and an early job of the cabin crew was to bring round a tray of barley sugar sweets for us to suck, to try and prevent your ears 'popping' in the unpressurised fuselage as we gained height. Needless to say any of the 32 passengers that wanted to walk up to the flight deck was welcome.

Coming back our arrival was after dark, so the sides of the runway were illuminated by blazing petrol-soaked rags in upturned dustbin lids!

In those days visitors to the airfield were welcome even if you were not flying. This including being allowed to do a general walkabout around the site and into the hangers. I remember being taken into the hanger shortly after Derby Airways had taken delivery of the DC4/Argonauts and being walked by an engineer through the cabin and up to the cockpit where we were told in no uncertain terms NOT to touch the central levers that would raise the under-carriage! All very exciting for an 8 year boy.

To say that the experience of civil aviation has changed in the last 50 years is a bit of an understatement!

Tim

[Gibbo 04 188]

Going off track.....I can remember watching Tollerton Air Show from the fields on what is now the Abbey Park Estate in West Bridgford in the 70's, then sneaking over the gate near Grantham Canal to get in for free!! oooh bad lads....