Manchester Airport - Then & Now
I have just stumbled across this thread and it has prompted me to make my first PPRuNe posting
From around 1955 to the early sixties my father worked for BEA in a uniformed 'reservations' capacity. He split his time between Ringway and the city centre Royal Exchange Air Terminal. Now, a lot of my recollections are hazy and some will prove innaccurate in their finer details but I am going to list a mixture of some of my late father's anecdotes and some of my own boyhood memories. I'm sure some of my points will serve to ressurrect this excellent thread and some new and entertaining stuff will result.
Here are my notes in no particular order or chronological relevance.
*Vulcans from nearby Woodford would sometimes perform circuits and bumps much to the startlement and horror of waiting passengers, but bemusement of airport workers.
*Several Vampires and perhaps a Meteor or two were based at Ringway and gave impromptu displays.
*When a Stratocruiser (PanAm, I think) landed at Ringway people looked on in dread as it approached the runway in a nosedive. Not having seen a Stratocruiser before, it just did not seem right that its nosewheel should be the first to touch the ground.
*Pleasure flights in an Auster from the hangars at the Altrincham Road farside were only 5 or 10 shillings. My pocket money was sixpence a week so I never left the ground in an Auster.
*A frequent celebrity Ringway passenger was Honor Blackman who was quite a stunner. She lived quite near - probably Wilmslow.
*My father used to sort out complicated UK flight itineries for the renowned racecourse gambler Alex Bird, who lived in Prestbury. My father's reward was a tip for which he was sworn to secrecy until after the race. These tips were, as they say, straight from the horses mouth and they always won. I might be wrong, but Mr Bird might have gone on to get his own light aircraft or at least make greater use of air taxis.
*Finnegan's of Wilmslow, the up-market department store, later to become Hoopers, ran the duty free shop. The catering was contracted to Smallman's. I seem to recall some kerfuffle about Mr Smallman being a city councillor and the tendering process had not been as squeaky clean as it ought to. I could be mistaken though.
*The ferrying of passengers between the airport and the city centre terminal was done with a small fleet of pale blue buses. The sight of one of these was enough to arouse schoolboy excitement. They were just so exclusive and mere members of the public would never get to ride on one. The buses were operated by Manchester City Council Transport Department and in addition to the blue colour scheme they were single deck from the front to halfway then a double deck sprouted from mid to rear. The cavernous luggage hold was under the top deck. The drivers acted like they owned Princess Parkway.
*For some strange reason an Icelandic aircraft was stranded at Ringway - probably a Loftleidir DC4. The passengers were all Icelandic whalers on their way to repatriation after a presumed long period at sea. Without exception, they were massive, bearded and looked ferocious. Naturally, they set up camp in the bar with not unexpected consequences. When the time came, they ignored all normal requests to board and the situation was close to getting dangerously out of hand until an Icelandic stewardess came on the scene. She was big-big blonde and certainly not the sort to take nonsense from anyone. To get this drunken horde out of the bar and across the apron to the waiting aircraft would normally have presented an impossible task. However, this nordic godess soon had them under control and behaving sheepishly. She organised a game which resulted in the ensemble performing a noisy but good-spirited conga which snaked around the bar a couple of times, then through a strategic door and eventually, still snakingly, across the tarmac to the aircraft steps.
*Apparently there was a plumbers merchant or similar in the Isle of Man who had a lock-up near Ringway which held a supply of copper cisterns. Whenever the DC3 to Ronaldsway was particularly empty, the first class section would be curtained off and, shielded from the passengers eyes, the seats would be occupied by copper cylinders, each oneduly strapped in. It helped with the trim too. You may treat this with a pinch of salt but in those days I was inclined to believe everything my father told me.
*The name 'Silver Wings Club' was unmentionable in our household. I only ever heard those words when my mother was cross about father's very occasional late homecomings. I wonder why?
*Does anyone remember the BEA ciggies in lightweight alloy tins? Were they Benson & Hedges or Du Maurier?
*From time to time I would get a few BEA barley sugar sweets. Standard issue on unpressurised aircraft. They were great for playground barters.
*In 1957 my brother and I who were in the cubs, were taken by father in a DC3 to Elmdon. We were to go on to Sutton Great Park to visit the Centenary Jamboree. Resplendent in our pristine uniforms and polished shoes, we were given the VIP treatment and had the 'honour' of leading the passengers out.
*As a boy I was fortunate to make quite a few unaccompanied flights. Invariably these were to Heathrow in a DC3 or Viscount and, towards the end, a Vanguard. I would be met by one of my father's colleagues and plonked on the 'roof garden' of Queen's Building. No matter how exciting the spotting was I always had to make my way back to the desk at about 2.30 - 3.00pm for the earliest flight back to Ringway lest there be problems with my 'stand-by' ticket.
*My spotting years were from around 1958 until just before the opening of the new terminal in 1962 so I never experienced the roof or piers. I would cycle from Rusholme to the pathway at the end of the runway down the side of the Airport Hotel. I used to get there much quicker by bike than by the 64 bus which took a circuitous route taking in Cheadle and Gatley. My route took me through Fallowfield, Withington and down Palatine Road where I would skirt Northenden and then Longley Road, Sharston, Benchill and finally a complicated little short cut through Woodhouse Park. Sometimes I would wait until my friends got on the bus in Rusholme and then proceed to prove that bike was quicker over the 5 or 7 miles or however many miles it was as the crow flies. By the way, does anyone remember the Stockport based North Western Roadcar Company which shared the 64 route with MCTD. They had strange red buses with long bench seats upstairs, the passageway being down the offside windows. Very awkward if you were 'trapped' in a window seat. Half a dozen people would have to move to let you out.
Here are a few of my Ringway memories:-
*The Ferranti family had homes and their factory HQ near the airport and used to base their DH Heron and/or Dove there. These were followed by a Piaggio P116 which made an unmistakable high-pitched noise due to it having twin rear facing props. For a short time I was under the erroneous impression that it was an amphibian but later learned that the P116 was based on an earlier Piaggio aircraft which was amphibian.
* With waits of up to an hour between aircraft arrivals, things could get tedious. You would watch that distant tiny black dot morph over the minutes into an aircraft and there would be a race to identify it first. There were very few folks around then with quality binoculars and scanners were unheard of. The monthly single sheet timetable might have included it but anything which was not a boring scheduled flight would never be included. It was useless to us regular spotters. Usually the main onboard landing lights would switch on about a mile from touchdown but if you saw lights on approach miles away, you could bet a pound to a penny that it was an Aer Lingus DC3. Were they the only ones to keep lights on all the time? The DC3s were replaced by Fokker Friendships during my time spotting.
*The pure jet age arrived at Ringway with Air France's Caravelle. I can't be certain but I feel that the Caravelle predated the first 707 as a scheduled jetliner at Ringway. The first 707 I saw was Sabena. Was Sabena the first airline to fly 707s out of Ringway? The others around that era were obviously BOAC and there was Aer Lingus. The bizjet had not fully arrived but I recall a Chester built DH125 making an early appearance. Before the arrival of the 707 the transatlantic flights were done by BOAC DC7 (Seven Seas) and Britannias (The Whispering Giant). The Super Connie with its wingtip fuel tanks, probably my all time favourite airliner after Concorde, was a rarity.
*Most comical and predictable regular was a Dan Air Avro York. I think it was on newspaper runs. It would bounce half a dozen times before settling on the runway.
*Helicopters were so rare in those days. I probably only saw half a dozen in my Ringway days. One was a civilian Bolkow and the remainder military Whirlwind types.
*My last Ian Allan had not yet completed G-A--- series.
*Package and charter operators rarely bought new. The overseas holiday industry was in its infancy and relied on cast-off DC3s, Vickers Vikings, DC4s and 6s. BUA used the more recent exBEA early Viscounts but, I believe this was to satisy HMG's conditions of troop carrying contracts. BKS based at Yeadon did buy new Avro 748s though they did have a varied fleet of second-hand including some exBEA DC3s and Elizabethans. I think a Channel Islands Airline bought new Dart Heralds but stictly speaking, they were probly more of a flag carrying airline than a charter outfit. Incidentally, I flew in a Herald some twenty years later and it was still like new.
*Convair Metropolitans had scheduled flights in and out of Ringway. I can remember seeing them in Swissair and Sabena liveries.
*Hunting Clan and British Eagle were regulars. I think they had DC4s, Vikings and perhaps the aforementioned Metropolitan.
*Bristol Freighters could often be seen. There was a sizeable traffic in racehorses between UK and Ireland. It was a Bristol Freighter en route from the Isle of Man which crashed onto Winter Hill in 1958 (The Viscount crash in 1957 just a couple of hundred yards from the Airport Hotel, just predates my spotting years).After the Bristol Freighters came the twin boomed BEA Argosy and, to my mind, the thinking behind the 747, the Carvair. Extra special cargo visitors were from Flying Tiger Lines. Word would spread like wildfire and people would descend on the airport in droves no matter what time of night or day. A rare treat would be a KLM Lockheed Electra (also cargo, I think). Those Allison turboprops sounded like nothing else.
*A Heron of The Queen's Flight with ubiquitous day-glo and Prince Philip at the controls was a memorable 'cop'
*Occasionally some of us would cycle round to near where the Romper pub stands and hope to glimpse Djindivik drones outside Fairey's hangar. Also, there was a twin engined American warplane which we assumed was a Martin Marauder or something of that ilk. It seemed to be there forever.
Seeing as this is my very first post in quite a few years of being a registered PPRuNer I have made up for it by possibly going over the top on my word count. Still, I hope its not all been boring. It would be nice if one or two of you could add your comments and please, please put me right where my shrinking brain cells have got it wrong.