llanfairpg
19th Jul 2007, 23:09
anyome know anything about this airfield. i believe there was a Viscount operation out of it before it closed
MReyn24050
20th Jul 2007, 09:04
Some information here:-
http://blackcountrybugle.co.uk/detail.asp?cat=General%20News&articleID=4289664
"RAF Seighford finally closed down in 1947, but received a new lease of life nine years later when Boulton Paul Aircraft acquired the airfield as a flight test centre, particularly for the Canberra jet bomber conversion work they were undertaking. They built a third hangar between the existing two, in a complex on the other side of the Eccleshall to Stafford Road, and resurfaced and extended the main runway to 2,030 yards. One of the aircraft based at Seighford for a while was the Tay-Viscount jet airliner, fitted by Boulton Paul with electric signalling to its controls, the world's first all fly-by-wire aircraft. In 1961, the many Canberras that had taken up residence in the three hangars were joined by Lightning jet fighters, under the development of Dowty Boulton Paul, which the company had now become. Finally, in 1965, with the infamous cancellation of the TSR-2, the company lost its conversion work, and once again Seighford closed down its operations, the hangars becoming part of a new industrial estate."
A photograph of the Tay-Viscount landing at Seighford is included in Alec Brew's book "Boulton Paul aircraft since 1915" published by Putnam at page 133.
llanfairpg
21st Jul 2007, 19:13
Fantastic, thank you very much