Miles monoplane landing at Heston Airport
 

I am researching an event which I witnessed at Heston Airport sometime around 1955/6 or 1959/60 but did not record at the time and remains unanswered. Having been born at Heston and lived there until 1964 , I gained an interest in aviation at the age of twelve, and have recently gained a historical collection of books, magazine pictures etc of the Airport's history.
One evening, possibly in the late autumn just as dusk was starting to fall, I observed a single engined monoplane circling Heston very low and it was apparent that the pilot was intending to land on the old airfield. This was a surprise since at that time a large part of the airfield had been dug up for gravel pits and the Airport had been officially closed since 1947. I jumped onto my bicycle and rode to where I was able to gain access to the airfield where I saw a Miles Hawk Trainer (believed to be G-ADWT ) parked on the last remaining strip of grass next to my old Berkeley Junior School's playing field. By that time there was no sign of the pilot or anyone to query why this aircraft had landed there, the engine was switched off, so I resolved to go back home to fetch my box camera. On returning however, it was already getting quite dark and the aircraft was being manhandled
much further away into a distant hangar owned by Heston Aircraft and the doors closed. Unfortunately I have never been able to find out the reason for this impromptu landing, bearing in mind that busy Heathrow traffic was less than a mile away from Heston and the circumstance of this unscheduled arrival.

I left Berkeley Junior in 1959 but lived a distance south so would probably not have noticed a light aircraft in the evening (although the Rotodyne going into Fairey's was a common site from home) and can't recall it.

I am searching for details of car sprints held on a remaining strip of Heston Airfield perimeter track, bordering the school playingfield and the gravel pits, around 1959!

That's interesting.... I have been collecting and researching Heston Airport history for years .... but I don't have much post closure stuff, but I'll have a look.

Do you know roughly where on the Airfield the sprints took place?

The Vintage Sports Car Club used to hold driving tests and sprints at Heston in the 1950s. They might be able to help with your research. You'll find their homepage via google.

Miles Monoplane landing at Heston Airport
 

The sports cars used to assemble on the apron in front of the hangars where the old aircraft fuel pump used to be on the eastern side of the control tower. There was still much of the old perimeter track left in the 1960's up to Berkeley School's playing field near to where I saw the Miles Hawk Trainer and finishing westwards to where Heston Aircraft used to have their design offices and production facilities near to Cranford. I learnt to drive myself on this peri-track and the sprints used by various auto-clubs, such as Triumph and Morgan, etc used the same. Regarding the Hawk Trainer however, I am still trying to contact the current pilots of G-ADWT to see if they have any record of this event in the aircraft's log book, if it indeed goes back this far.

Miles monoplane landing at Heston Airport
 

Does anybody know the name of the company that extracted gravel from the field at that time?

Heston
 

The Ham River Gravel Company - I remember their unusual half cab AEC tip trucks being a common sight in the area. I think they were bought out by another company somewhere around 1960 - something Sand and Gravel rings a bell.

Could that be 'St Ives Sand and Gravel' a name that seemed to be everywhere at the time ! (dark green vehicles) ? Keith.

As in St Ives in the (old) county of Huntingdonshire?

Amazing to find some recollection of motorsport at Heston. Yes, what I saw was on a section of peri track that ended near the top of the school playing field. It was a section that involved a U turn where the track ended and runing back towards the start.
On an even more bizarre note I assited in the removal of fish from the last remaing section of water before landfill and the M4 Services destroyed it. The fish were caught by a team of anglers from the Bath Road Piscatorial Society and transported to a gravel pit in Colnbrook/Poyle in water-filled metal drums in the back of a van.
Sorry to get this thread off topic - I now see there is a separate thread for general Heston/Hounslow/Hanworth matters.

Miles Monoplane landing at Heston Airport
 

Might this have been Henry Streeter Sand & Ballast? Brown logo, Dodge tippers I believe.

Heston
 

No, I don't think so and not St.Ives either!

I seem to remember grey or green trucks with orange lettering. Ham River trucks were (I think) grey with dark green (or was it black) lettering - this is seriously straining my memory files - may need a defrag!

Whilst on this trivial pursuit I do recall that the Ham River Gravel Company was named after the village of Ham on the River Thames and not any 'Ham River'. Strange what the memory absorbs and tucks away waiting for a prompt.

Heston
 

Following some links on another thread - http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...-hounslow.html I found a fascinating site which may have the answer to the original query. It includes the entry: See: http://www.commercemarketplace.com/h.../woodason.html

"Ham" does sound familiar to me too as the name on the gravel trucks.

Miles monoplane lands at Heston Airport
 

The brief reference to the above found on the Woodason website was put in by an Air Britain member who used to live in the same road as myself at Heston but came home too late that day to see the aircraft. His report is based on mine although he thinks that the most likely year was 1955 when he first started logging aircraft details, this has still to be verified. I have currently a possible lead of someone who used to work at Heston Aircraft whom I intend contacting, to try and resolve the long unanswered question, " why did this Hawk Trainer land so late in the twilight hours and was there a purpose for the visit ?"

The M4 motorway now passes across the old Heston site, and Heston services is pretty much midpoint on the old airfield. The motorway opened in March 1965.

Across the Heston site the carriageways are in a cutting (you go up to the service area, and back down again on leaving, quite notably eastbound). Given that it took typically 3 years in those days to do the construction work and longer to do the land deals I would guess that mineral extraction in 1959-60 was being done immediately before the land was taken for the road, and was coordinated with the proposed carriageway earthworks.

There is still gravel extraction on the south side of the motorway between the two Heathrow junctions 3 and 4, which has been going n lackadasically for many years. The proposed new Heathrow north side runway will be there so it seems somewhat strange to be digging the ground out, it will presumably all have to go back.

Miles plane...Heston after closure ...gravel extraction
 

Hallo Lawrence.. I've purchased and checked Air Pictorials from Autumn 1955 and 1956 for mention of the Miles at Heston without any luck so far....I haven't got Dec 1955 or 1956 which would cover reports from October of those years....could be in the airfield reports, or 'Journal of a Roving Spotter' or the letters pages.... I think it was heading for Croydon in the fading light or the pilot said he thought it was Croydon (possibly humorously) but where I got these notions from I'm not sure
Re gravel ...I'd love to see a pic of those strange Ham River sand and Gravel Trucks....by 1968 a co. called Hall and Ham River were taken over by Ready Mixed Concrete (RMC) a multinational with interests in many Thames Valley land deals (I think Thorpe park was one of theirs)
Another Heston thread I came across searching for 'Heston Airport Bar' was the presence of the USAF 3903 Radar Bomb Scoring Unit.... SAC the USN and the RAF did simulated runs in the area at altitude ....Don Decker the airman who posted the message thought he remembered barges moving the gravel in the pits....I can only remember the temporary rail system serving the eastern pit fed by the Ruston Bucyrus crane... the gravel was processed then transported in the Ham River Co. lorries down New Hyde Lane and Vicarage farm Rd...maybe the barges were used on the western pit near the old Heston Aircraft hangar
Re Steve Remington Collectair pages, I sent him rather a lot of maps :) but was able to correct him on the size of Heston airfield....I in turn found that the house I thought had been destroyed in Gaston Riggs fatal Mustang crash was the wrong one(there was also a derelict house corner of New Heston Rd and Vicarage Farm Rd opposite Bens newsagent and Dr Lloyds surgery until about 1954)...I was able to photograph the correct site (the M4!! ) early last year.
I am puzzled by the ATC cadets account.... their is also a similar account by a young girl I think on one of the BBC's People at War web projects I think.... has anybody attempted to list all the crashes at Heston in WWII?
Regards to all on Pprune...I like what i've seen so far and I intend to contribute to the Heathrow thread soon....Mick

Heston gravel
 

Re WHBM post , posted while I wrote the previous, as I recall the Eastern gravel pit was dug on a rolling basis from North Hyde Lane westwards from about 1952 and filled continuously from the N. Hyde Lane side so the pit was never more than about 100yards E-W but maybe 300-400 yards N-S ,the temporary rail track which ran N-S by the crane was moved periodically... they basically dug out the gravel from the whole eastern extension to Heston Airport of 1938. When the M4 was built they had to dig up part of the filled land for the cutting.... I'm unsure of what happened with the western pit(as I remember quite large and not immediately backfilled) which was north of the line of the M4 I think.... I believe methane emissions from the filled pits were a problem with housing to the north west of the airfield( near Convent way), or was that the filled in canal spur or docks that used to be there?.... Mick

I remember Ham River trucks dripping water all down Vicarage Farm Road - were they the darkish grey half-cab ex-military ones, perchance?

At some point during the fifties there were also large numbers of 'Limmer & Trinidad Lake Asphalt' trucks on the same road, but I can't remember whether or not they were hauling gravel.

Oh, for those simple days again!

Heston
 

Hall Sand & Gravel - that is ringing loud bells as the company that took over from Ham River (either bought out or got the contract). Red Bedford TKs now sound familiar - I think??:confused:

The AEC half cabs were not ex military but bought new - my uncle worked at AEC and there was an article about them in a staff magazine he gave me.