Phil.
Members were talking about an airport rail link, there is no denying that!
In the good ol' days UK regional operators would operate such aircraft types as DHC6's, EMB110's, Do228's, Do328's, SD330's, SD360's, Jetstreams or similar, all in the 18 seats to 36 seats range and such an airfield/airport might find itself serviced by an 18 seat (ish) aircraft.
And one operator I worked for in a previous life could, of a weekend, fill 44 seater aircraft from all sorts of regional airports to/from the Channel Islands.
However Oxford does find itself serviced by an 18 (ish) seater aircraft and it does find itself serving the Channel Islands ... and it can't even make that work, Oxford can't even, regularly, fill 18 (ish) seats to/from the Channel Islands!
And the comes along a (third world!) F50 operator ... If there is money to be made on such routes in/out of Oxford then why haven't the likes of Manx2 jumped on it with their modestly sized aircraft?
Because there's insufficient market to be had in/out of Oxford, that's why!
And sorry if my posts disappoint, that I don't share the level of enthusiasm of aircraft enthusiasts, but 50 seater operations in/out of Oxford ... Well it's just ridiculous.
And think about this one ... Had there not been a WWII and/or a Cold War would UK have as many airports as it does have?