Once the RAF move out of St Mawgan Newquay Airport will become another Manston, a large airfield but without the catchment area to justify it. What Manston has in it's favour is that it is ideally placed for weather diversions from the London area and the close continent whereas St Mawgan, well it might attract a St. Just, Penzance helicopter or PLH diversion but that's about it and it is a very much larger airfield than Manston, it has the widest runway, 9000ft x 300ft, in the country and with the tower etc. on the RAF side.
What Cornwall needs is a centrally located modest airport, perhaps a 7000ft runway but a longer one might be convenient for the occasional fuel stop before a heavy crosses the pond, a modest terminal, perhaps a freight facility, and with good road and perhaps rail connections and not a bl00dy great airfield & RAF camp the size of St. Mawgan, particularly one at an elevation of some 600ft.
So why not develop somewhere like the former RAF Portreath:
http://www.multimap.com/map/photo.cg...&scal e=25000
OK, it seems to have about 4 runways but from the pic it appears only one runway has been maintained, a cross runway is always handy for crosswind conditions, but development can be concentrated on a tailor made commercial airport rather than an RAF base with a civilian terminal as far away as possible.
Portreath is about 2 miles off the A30 and about 3 miles from a railway line and Redruth station, it is in a non built up area and has approaches over the sea.
If the RAF are to pull the plug on St Mawgan then perhaps it might be the right time for Cornwall's airport to make a clean break and start anew.
I would like to add that it was only from reading this thread that I just learnt of Bill Bryce's death last year. Having worked for Bill in the pre BA days of Brymon I would like to say that he was a character, all be it sometimes a short tempered character, but he was a good guy and with a heart of gold and he did a lot for aviation, in his own unique way, for Devon and Cornwall. Rest in peace WRB!
Bill Bryce and Chris Amon, 2 Newzealanders created Brymon Airways. Amon was the number one Ferrari Grand Prix driver in the 60`s.
Brymon’s first schedule was from Newquay to the Scilly Isles in 1972 using an Islander aircraft
Brymon were the first UK operator of the Twin Otter from 1974
They bought the Newquay-London Heathrow route in 1977 from Michael Bishop for £200,000 using Herald aircraft
Bryce, the ex journalist and farmer helped to build the new runway at Plymouth in 1981
In 1982 Brymon`s test pilot flew the Dash-7 into Heron`s Quay before the airport was built that was to become London City Airport, named by the Plymouth airline
Bryce sold the airline in 1983 to an ex British Airways manager, Charles Stuart