Brymon Airways

[sdc08]

I suppose this is kind-of in the "nostalgia" category, but an interesting piece of commentary on how the UK regional airline sector has evolved over the last couple of decades:
http://www.simplydevonandcornwall.com/Brymon%20Airways.html

[KeMac]

Quite interesting. There is not a great deal on the internet about the smaller British Airlines of the last 30 years or so.

[Grys Dweizelschidt]

I used to enjoy travelling with Brymon, between the South West and Gatwick, then through Bristol and on up to Aberdeen.

Sometimes in a -8, sometimes in a coach. Occasionally I'd even manage to get back to Cornwall at the same time as my bags.:\

I gave up and bought a car.

The people were great, I hasten to add.

[K.Whyjelly]

I wonder how many people had tickets with Brymon and thought they were going to be conveyed to Bristol but ended up in Cardiff on the coach for the drive back over the bridge??? :}






Not the airlines fault I know................just reminiscing

[jonathon68]

I had a couple of fairly happy years with Brymon flying the -7 in the early 90's before moving onto more lucrative things.

Plymouth, St Mawgan, Jersey and Bristol etc were excellent airports for gaining experience in poor weather! In my last year I flew 810 hours (and 400+ sectors), and all for about GBP18k. I am too lazy to count up all the diversions in my logbook, but I certainly remember sharing quite a few coach trips with the passengers late at night. I remember the pax were always polite and good humoured, but maybe I was too young and naiive to know what was going on.

Some excellent people in the aeroplane (up front, in the back, and paying our wages), and on the ground (engineers plus office).

I remember the steepest ever descent profile into Newcastle! Light aircraft holding short of the runway was told to line up after the landing Brymon. Some moments later he questioned where the landing aircraft was, and tower said "cleared to line up after the landing Harrier, above you"! We certainly needed some thrust for that flare and touchdown!

[kernowbird]

has Roborough weather, diversion pending.

A well worn saying often heard in the tower at Exeter back in the twin otter (and Dash-7) days

[Raven30]

has Roborough weather, diversion pending.....But many is the time they did get in at St Mawgan in poor vis - clearly remember standing beside the RVR tower hearing the D7 land, but never seeing it!

[Biggles1049]

A couple of images from memory lane

Click here for a larger image http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1030318/

Gatwick June 1981

http://www.abpic.co.uk/images/thumbs/1030318_t.jpg


Click here for a larger image http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1024091/

http://www.abpic.co.uk/images/thumbs/1024091_t.jpg

Heathrow MArch 1984

[twochai]

Bill Bryce, RIP, was one of the world's characters. As someone once said: "It takes unreasonable people to make unusual progress on impossible dreams".

Bill certainly fulfilled all the requirements!

[om15]

Don't forget in the very early days the mainstay of Brymon was Dart Herald G-ATIG, St Mawgan to LHR I think, pretty dreadfull colour scheme, operated from 1977 to possibly around 1982, in 1979 G-ATIG did the Aberdeen service in addition to the West Country operation.

regards,
om15

[Outoftheblue22]

I see the "archive" of Brymon photos has had a load more pics added, including a couple of pics of the first Dash 7 being delivered to PLH in 1980ish complete with Bill Bryce watching the arrival!
Follow the link to the photo archive from this page, and enjoy!: Brymon Airways - history and photo archive (http://www.simplydevonandcornwall.com/Brymon%20Airways.html)

[marlowe]

Brymon Airways some of the happiest times i can remember flying, if only BA had left it alone or at least understood what it had there .

[chevvron]

Did a fam flight Heathrow - Newquay once with Brymon.
Took a taxy into town on arrival at Newquay; cost about 5 quid (about 1981) so coming back, I took the local bus to the RAF side; cost 22p; '22p' I said to the driver, 'yes it's half price on mondays' he replied!! Anyway on arrival, I phoned the tower and did a liaison visit, then scrounged a lift across the airfield to the Brymon Terminal. The ground handlers couldn't figure out how I arrived from airside!!
After getting airborne for Heathrow, F/O handling asked the captain for windscreen anti-icing; captain picks up his torch (no illumination on the flight deck) selects a switch- and the windscreen wipers came on!! Sorry says the captain, been on Twin Otters for six weeks!!