I have over the years seen several British Eagle Britannia's photographed at Luton but was there ever a time that they have operated passenger services out of Luton?

Not too sure about Eagle Brits operating from Luton but when they went bust in 1968 the winter ski 1968-69 programme for Lunch Poly and other tour operators which should have been flown from Heathrow was transferred to Luton with Monarch getting most of the business but Britannia doing some flying with their Brits as well.

i think Eagle may have done some ad hoc occasional flights from LTN but not many

the British Eagle failure in late 1968 lead to Lunn poly/Everyman urgently needing summer 1969 IT contracts which is why Dan Air quickly set up the LTN base with 2, then 4 1-11's to fly for them, plus G-AZED came along later making 5 units.

losing LHR as a base was a knock for the holiday company as LTN was seen as the ''poor relation'' for IT charters (no disrespect to my LTN colleagues)

Clarksons had Autair 5 1-11's and Monarch had just started up for Cosmos
Thomson SkyTours/Riviera had BY Brits and 2 B732's new in 1968
Channel 1-11's and Tridents were flying for Lyons holidays but mainly from STN but they did fly from LTN too

I seem to remember sightseeing flights in a Reims Cessna 172 boarding from the spectators area. Early or mid 70s?

I think I can just remember pleasure flights where passengers boarded via a gate in the fence by the corner of the spectators area. I can't remember who or where the money was collected through.

Like you LTNman I most definitely remember a gate in the corner of the spectators area where the pleasure flights boarded from. I'm intrigued now how it all worked - could you literally just rock up, pay your money and hop on board? How did the pleasure flights work?

Pleasure flights
 

Yes you could just turn up-Summer week ends/holidays only.
Regular aircraft was G-ASZW Cessna 172. A good friend flew them for a while-he`s now with Thomson as a senior Captain.

Yes, I remember the pleasure flying well. It was either Luton Flying Club or a C172 from Clacton I seem to remember. On easterlies they would often go off rwy 36 but land 06, paralleling the 08 approach (well, I did :-) ) Great times and 'proper' air traffic control not like the regimented system these days!

Back in those days Luton's concrete runway was not very busy with long gaps between airliners but I can remember plenty of light aircraft and not so light occasional Twin Otters passing over FineFare (Asda) and then my house as grass runway 18 was quite popular. Was that always due to the prevailing wind? The runway seemed to get more traffic than I would have expected.

I took several pleasure flights from Luton in 81-82. As I recall they always landed on a grass strip parallel to the terminal side of the main runway.

Yep that is the grass runway in question. The other grass runway that was almost parallel to the main runway was the first to close for reasons unknown.

Buster: I didn't know that the beautiful bird had visited humble LTN?? I'm sure others here know but please tell.

LTNman. I could be wrong here but I suspect that 06/24 grass was closed when the hard taxiway was built to the new hangar near the old LFC and Helitech hangars. The taxiway was partially constructed and then left moribund for some time, as I suspect you probably recall. Some of the wags in ATC used to refer to it as 'The Raisbeck memorial parkway'.

06/24 was pretty notorious for aquiring rabbit holes overnight but was also very popular with certain individuals on the morning surface inspection for producing an excellent crop of field mushrooms. I did a number of dual circuits on it with Steve Pugh and it was an excellent runway for teaching tyro pilots how to handle short field technique as it had massive run-offs at either end.

Why would a runway with massive runoffs be useful in teaching short field technique? Surely you'd need a short field for that? At least, that's how I did it.

Because if you didn't end up stopping within the markers you didn't run into a fence/hedge/ditch. It was rather like the dummy carrier landing deck they had painted on the runway at Henstridge if you've ever visited there?

When I started in 1967 there was grass rwys 24/06 and 18/36. 24/06 certainly is not parallel to 26/08 but if we trusted the bloke in the light aircraft we would treat it so. 'Clear to land 24, if the event of a go-around remain north of the main' was the phrase used. :-)

Left circuits on 06 were interesting. Left base would cross through the final app for 08 and then final would cross over the runway again. Again, if you trusted the person then you could ask the light aircraft to remain north of the 08 approach.

All good fun. Wouldn't get away with it now!

Statute of limitations applies. ;-)