What did Gatwick used to look like

[PAXboy]

Interesting thread. What I cannot yet find is, after the building of the Beehive (which looks very sensible for it's day) how did the pax get to the building? A tunnel?

[DaveReidUK]

Interesting thread. What I cannot yet find is, after the building of the Beehive (which looks very sensible for it's day) how did the pax get to the building? A tunnel?

Got it in one.

Subterranea Britannica: Sites: gatwick_airport_passenger_subway

[WHBM]

That photo of the access tunnel to the Beehive being 17 years old, I did read somewhere more recently that it was now flooded.

Always reminds me of St Petersburg's 1970s Soviet-era domestic terminal with its two Beehives, connected underground to the terminal building.

Google Maps

[PAXboy]

Thanks for the update. I knew the history of Heathrow and Croydon but had no idea about LGW until I read this thread.

[The SSK]

I spent a week spotting at LGW in I think 1964. I was a guest of a friend of one of my uncles, who was Personnel Director at BUA and had a house at Lowfield Heath, with the runway at the bottom of the garden.

Every day I’d walk to the terminal, passing first the big hangars (Hunting?) which usually had some exotica in front, often Flying Tiger Connies and Saturn DC7s. Then there was an apron that had several Morton Daks and Herons. Then the Hermes fuselage used for BUA cabin crew training – then to the roof terrace for the rest of the day.

I saw only two jets during my time there, an N-reg Jetstar and the arrival of BUA’s second VC10, which I witnessed at close range from the bottom of the garden.

For a spotter the place was like a magic box, apart from the monotony of the BUA Viscountr and Britannias there was an amazing variety of creatures great and small. I recall a Hornet Moth taking off from the taxiway, an N-reg corporate Viscount, an immaculate Iberia Connie … but my abiding recollection was of DC6s, from a huge variety of European airlines – Spantax, TASSA, SAM, UAT, Adria, Balair, Sterling. I’d fallen in love with Sixes when they were the biggest thing to visit my home airport at Newcastle, so I was in heaven.

[A30yoyo]

Gatwick late 60s

Cabling-Up Gatwick Airport 1968 by A30yoyo, on Flickr

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Luxai...liner/731730/L

and ca.1975

[Limeygal]

Ah, happy days at Gatwick. I was working for Dan-Air in the early 1970s. The crew room was under the far finger at gate #39 I think. You could just walk onto the tarmac and walk around to the finger. Bet you can't do that anymore. I loved the Comet. My favourite aircraft-noisy though. The 707's were pigs, especially, Sierra Lima, also known as Sick Lil and in Toronto-Still Late!

[Speedbird48]

I have just found this Gatwick site and can add a little to what has been said already.

I landed at Gatwick in the mid '50's in a Miles Magister to collect a propellor for an Auster. The surface was grass with chicken wire embeded in it,(not PSP) as were many WW2 grass airfields, and on touchdown water enveloped the aircraft. The place was like a shallow lake.

We taxied to a hangar on the South side where a guy by the name of Bazil Maile operated a flying club with Taylorcrafts/Austers. We collected the prop' and departed with it sticking out of the top!!!

On the North side A.J.Walter had a couple of hangars with several J3/L4 Cubs stored on their noses and in the other hangar there were at least three Sikorski R4 helicopters in RAF markings.

Over at the Airwork hangars, behind the Beehive there were many Spitfire/Seafires being converted for the Burmese Air Force and BEA had a helicopter unit over there with a Bell 47.

The Windmill Theatre transport company had a hangar with several airplanes suitably painted with scantily clad young maidens on the cowlings!!

Speedbird 48.

[fauteuil volant]

Those who have found this thread interesting may care to look at Gatwick Airport.

[Union Jack]

The surface was grass with chicken wire embefded in it,(not PSP)

More properly known of course as Sommerfeld Tracking (qv)!

Jack

[Wodrick]

The 707's were pigs, especially, Sierra Lima, also known as Sick Lil and in Toronto-Still Late!

and in Manchester "Spread Legs"

[chevvron]

That Jetranger must be parked in what is now the car park for the CAA's Aviation House.

[pmills575]

Here is another (poor quality!) picture of the first licence issued to Gatwick in 1930.

http://gatwick-aviation-museum.co.uk/images/gatlic.jpg

pm575

[RichardRS]

Can someone help please?

I am part of and a contributor to the website Reel Streets - Reelstreets Films - Home Page that endeavours to establish locations used in commercially distributed films and provide "now" shots of the same location if at all possible. This is partly from an cinema interest point of view but also recording pieces of history that may not be available elsewhere. I am currently "working on" a film known as Breaking Point (1961) that features Gatwick Airport and would welcome advice/information as to which arm or passenger pier the photo brept015 is of. I am attaching other screen captures, largely in response to when this thread started, when the question was asked if anyone had any photographs of Gatwick Airport, I thought that these may bring back some memories.

[fauteuil volant]

Central pier, looking east.

[PAXboy]

Whaaaaat? Nobody has yet identified the Viscount, it's number and entire history? Shocking, PPRuNers well below their usual standard...

[brakedwell]

A relatively recent 1984 photo of the Gatwick ramp taken from an Air Europe B757.

[Herod]

Hey, Brakedwell; we're getting old. "relatively recent" is thirty-two years ago.

[RichardRS]

Thanks

Many thanks fauteuil volant, I will, if I may, give you due thanks and credit when I publish the film on Site. Sorry PAXboy, I cannot help with regard to the Viscount, the old B&W film definitions are not that great but you may wish to know that "baddies cargo" was loaded onto a Douglas Dakota G-AMPZ which seems to have had a long and varied history.

Thanks chaps for your help.

[olympus]

Originally Posted by Speedbird48

We taxied to a hangar on the South side where a guy by the name of Bazil Maile operated a flying club with Taylorcrafts/Austers. We collected the prop' and departed with it sticking out of the top!!!

I met Basil Maile in Washington DC (actually somewhere in Maryland, I think) around 1982 when he was working for AOPA USA. He very kindly put me in touch with Pitts and AT-6 operators as I wanted to get some time on those types. He and his wife invited me round for dinner one night and he lent me one of his cars for the rest of my stay in DC. (A Hillman Minx if memory serves - he had a garage full of British cars!)

Sorry for the thread drift...