Swansea Thumbs Up

[denhamflyer]

Popped into Swansea for a meeting today. Very helpful people. Taxi waiting.. and excellent help getting departure via cardiff and home field weather - all without prompting :ok:

I hear a lot of airfield bashing so I thought I'd mention when I visit an airfield that makes my life easier and enjoyable. Especially as it looked a bit empty and would benefit from some visitors. Didn't have time to try the cafe but all those present seemed friendly.

Slightly undulating runways add some interest too :ooh:.

All for £12 - cant be bad...

[TheOddOne]

Denhamflyer,

Nice to hear they're still hanging in there.

We used to (try) to hold an aerobatic competition there every year - the South Wales Open. Worked a couple of times but the weather got the better of us and it's moved to a Yorkshire venue.

Air Wales set up there a few years ago with some improvements and of course Tower as they were running scheduled services but this all collapsed a year or so ago and the place subsided into inactivity. One of the problems with the place but a benefit to us is that if it actually stops operating then the local council have to grub up the runways, demolish all the buildings etc and return it to open heathland, a very expensive process, as the MoD found when they had to do the same at Greenham Common. Funnily enough, it's cheaper to keep it going than close it. An alternate is Pembury, been there a couple of times, don't know if it's still open.

Cheers,
TheOddOne

[rossym]

Pembrey is still open.... been closed recently for a runway extension or something, but AFAIK, it is open again now.

denhamflyer - Glad to hear you had a good experience at Swansea :ok:

[BristolScout]

Pembrey is open again but not licensed. Some drainage work required to satisfy the CAA which will take a couple of months once its dry enough to get heavy machinery onto the grass. Strictly PPR during week when bombing range open for business, all welcome weekends and public holidays. Good caff, (as is Swansea where Reggae sauce, as seen in Dragons Den is available for purchase.)

If you're in this area, West Wales Airport (formerly Aberporth) is very welcoming. It's under the pimple of D201 but there's no problem joining as they have an understanding with the range to operate normally up to 1nm north of centre line. Just join from the south and call in plenty of time. Only restriction is occasional uav flying so a phone call before departure is a good idea but not essential. No cafe, but the kettle is always on and one of the boys will show you the nearby layby with wicked bacon butties.