Luton in the Fifties. Grass track runway.
I see there was a discussion about airfields near Watford back in 2006 and I wasn't registered with this forum then otherwise I'd have joined in but I see that Luton was mentioned a few times and I wondered if anyone is interested in my memories of the place.
When I was just 7 yrs old in 1953 my father an ex RAF Bomber Command Pilot who flew Wellingtons in WWII was working for Smiths Aircraft Instruments and he took my brother and me over to Luton for a pleasure flight around the area doing a few circuits of Luton.
Smiths had a Percival Proctor there G-AHFK which later won a few Air Race Trophies and ended its days in South Africa. After Smiths sold the Proctor they acquired a Saab Safir G-ANOK and we also had a flight or two in that.
The Luton aerodrome was very crude affair compared to the complex that is there today. We had to drive almost through the middle of Vauxhall's factory to get there and there was a very modern control tower and it was manned by a guy who lived in a bungalow right by the entrance gate called Mr Rushton.
At the age of 7 I hated flying as I couldn't see out of the window and the massive amount of bumping in flight was like being blindfolded and sent on a roller coaster. The noise was horrendous and I was not a fan of flying from that moment on. But I did go plane spotting by cycling on my bicycle to Bovingdon from our home in Watford and I would have been about 11 or 12 at the time. We used to watch American planes at Bovingdon and I seem to remember the Blackburn Beverly or possibly the Fairchild Packet.
At one point my father landed the Saab at somewhere like Bovingdon and parked it up just below the wing of the huge Blackburn plane making it look quite funny by comparison that the press photographed it.
I remember my father showing me the press proofs of the photos.
At Luton on one unfortunate occasion my father let a partly trained pilot bring the Saab into Luton to land. Something went a bit wrong on touchdown and the nosewheel snapped off and the plane nose dived into the grass when almost stopped. This did a fair bit of damage and snapped off the prop.
I remember taking the yellow and black tip of the prop that my dad brought home after this incident. Nobody was hurt but it was a great boost to my ego to take the prop tip to school and show it off.
It is indeed sad to think that Bovingdon has become just a Car Boot sale site and a store for something and has no connection now with the Aircraft industry or military. I did have an email from a Canadian guy who was at Bovingdon during the Cold War and he had a very nostalgic soft spot for the place.
I wonder if anyone else reading this forum has any memories of Luton.
Saab Safir G-ANOK was eventually sold to a private owner who flew many trips from Scotland to Sweden and back. It was eventually sent to the East Fortune Museum and somehow it left there and found its way into a barn in a farm on the Scottish Borders where it still remains to this day. It is in what is best described as a sorry state now. The present owner doesn't wish to make contact about it and one can probably assume it will never fly again. Restoration would probably be too expensive and not guaranteed to be made airworthy again. It was a very advanced plane for its time.
I would be happy to hear from anyone in email or on the forum if they have any parallel memories of that time and place.
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Plado (New member now in S Devon)