Weston On The Green (D129) - Monday 1st May

[Flying_Anorak]

Hi,

Not out to persecute anybody here, but interested to know if anyone on here very nearly landed on the westerly runway late on Monday? If so, where did you think you were instead of Weston On The Green?

We were carrying out gliding operations (N/W set up) and the parachuting DZ was operational to the north and west of the field so we were all naturally rather suprised when a Rallye / Robin aircraft appeared over the hedge putting on power to execute a missed approach from very long finals and then flew through the DZ towards Kidlington!

We have the registration (as do the DZ) and I'm guessing that you may have been 'spoken to, but in the interests of flight safety, I am curious to learn how this situation arose, after all WOTG is nothing like Kidlington!

If you know who you are and would prefer to PM me thats fine, as I said not out to aportion blame or name and shame, just keen to understand how this situation arose as if we'd been winch launching or the paras were under canopy at the time, this could have been far more serious.

[Whopity]

You'll have to get Inspector Frost on the case; not so long ago he arrived there lost in a helicopter!

[Whirlygig]

Not_the_first_time_either (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=190642&highlight=Weston)

Perhaps there are some issues all round that need to be addressed.

Cheers

Whirls

[wz662]

There must be something about the numpties that fly into Kidlington as Abingdon still gets visits from aircraft (fixed and Rotary) that are really after Kidlington. Not bad for an airfield that doesn't appear on some of the GPS databases but IS marked on the charts as active with gliders and parachutes.... Oh and lets not forget all the helicopter activity from the guys from Benson and Odiham.

[dublinpilot]

I see that note 1 on this years CAA chart is the exact same as last years.

Obviously those at WOG prefer to come onto the web an moan about the problem, than to do anything about it.

Flying_Anorak,

If you are genuinely interested in understanding the problem and trying to do something about it, I suggest you read the thread the Whirly pointed to. There were some useful suggestions there, which really should be followed up.

In particular I think that note 1 on the chart needs amending. Probably not the problem in this particular case, which seems more to do with navigation, but none the less, something that needs improving.

dp

[tmmorris]

Oh come on, wz662, at least Abingdon does have a vaguely similar runway layout to Kidlington and you could mistake Abingdon for Oxford...

I suppose the absence of beautiful stone quadrangles might be a giveaway, but there you are.

Tim

[Johnm]

I haven't yet turned up at either Abingdon or Weston in mistake for Kidlington, but I have observed that Kidlington is very difficult to spot until you have been there a couple of times. It's not surprising therefore that its neighbours get the odd visit.

Is there anything that could be done to make Kidlington more obvious e.g. a Compton Abbas style flashing beacon??

[blue up]

Didn't someone write a little message in the grass at Kidlington with weed-killer some years ago? Something ending with ".......OFF"?:E

How about writing "WESTON" in weedkiller or sowing a giant "W" in the field?