The AA at Coventry in the 80s
 

Hi folks,
I think AA had quite a large operation at Coventry, which I seem to remember included a 421 and even a Learjet. Can anyone remember what they actually did? Was it air ambulance/repatriation, or was it more widely a public transport air taxi outfit?
John Milner was (I think but am not sure) the chief pilot of the operation, nice chap, he used to do instrument rating renewals. Does anyone know/remember him?

They had a Conquest G-AUTO I recall - C421 was G-BBUJ (how did that lurk in the recesses of my mind?), Lear 35 was G-GAYL.

They certainly did medical repatriations.

I don’t know but jolly well remembered! I think that 421 was later replaced by another 441, G-BHLP. I used to see that around a fair bit.

In earlier times I remember them having G-AHKV Rapide and G-APZE Apache

As the main AA offices were in Basingstoke, they used to go into Odiham a lot after using a strip south west of Basingstoke for a while in the early '70s.
Late' 80s when Farnborough opened up to civil aircraft, the Lear was a frequent visitor preferring us to Odiham, especially as we didn't mind it's 'spectacular' departures ie get airborme, gear up and hold it at about 100ft until the end of the runway then pull up steeply to iniitial cleared altitude.(maybe the driver was ex Lightnings?)

Preston Candover?

(I saw the original British Lear G-BBEE do a near vertical departure from Heathrow's 28L way back when... after lift off it was held low until past T3 then pulled up - probably levelled off at about 2 or 3000')

No not Preston Candover; I saw the AA strip marked on a map in Odiham ATC on a visit there in the early '70s; it was between the A30 and the M3 and is now covered in houses.
I know PC very well having visited and flown out of there with Peter Cadbury several times; on one occasion, I arrived for a flight in his Islander and the airstrip was deserted, then his Jetranger appeared climbing over the southern airfield boundary, landed near me and Janie (his wife at that time) got out and said 'Peter says do you want a quick trip in that while he's got it running?' So I walked over, opened the passenger door, put one foot inside and we took off! I quickly hoisted myself inside and shut the door; he wasn't even wearing a seat belt!

These two were Biggin based in the 60s, rather than Baginton......

Shame that the OS map site doesn't include historical map data so you can go back and see how things have changed over the years. The Library of Scotland site is excellent but most recent maps are 50 years plus and coverage can be patchy...

Peter Cadbury also had a C340 I think, G-JANE?

Sorry, thread drift...

Even further thread drift. I thought "AA at Coventry" meant Air Atlantique.

The First AA Aircraft?
 

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ee7b46103.jpeg
Back to the original thread..........

Auster J/5Q Alpine many years ago. Was this the first AA aircraft?

He had Islander G-BESO and a C310 G-MADI too, plus a couple of C421s; used to change every couple of years; the airstrip (about 1200m) had runway edge lights and AAIs plus a hangar.
Then John Sainsbury bought the estate and immediately removed all trace of the airstrip.

Drifting, there also was a Cessna 337 at Preston Candover.

As for AA, perhaps Andy Walton was there.

Am I right in saying that 'G-AUTO' is - or possibly was - the only reusable registration on the UK register? (i.e. it belonged to the AA rather than being allocated to a specific aircraft - they were only allowed to use it on one aircraft at a time though obviously :) )

G-AUTO was only ever used on the one Conquest between 1979 and 1984, when it was sold to another business.

Think it was unique in being registered in the G-AU sequence, other than aircraft registered in Australia between 1919 and 1929...

Two registrations that have been used by more than one aircraft were G-BCSE, a CSE Learjet and Navajo; and G-BJCB, two different HS125s. Various period registrations which were either unallocated or allocated to aircraft which never flew with them were reissued to various classic imports in the 1980s, notably Luscombes. For some reason an Aerostar managed to gatecrash the party and was allocated G-ADRW...

Ah yes, I knew it was unique in some way. Thanks for the info, treadigraph.

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/
Has various old maps for UK. Exact maps available seem to vary by location. Links to NLS maps mentioned above. You seem to have to dig around the map menus to see which maps exist for your location of interest. The Overlay" feature is great. You can have the current and a historic map selected and choose to mix between them. [100% old -- 0% new], all the way to the opposite.

Some notes I made regarding this site:-

Click on one of the 'OS One Inch' options, then 'create overlay', move the slider and you can see how things have changed over the years.)

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/
1957 survey

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/
maps hosted by NLS, OS six inch
OS One Inch Maps, 1:25,000 1950s

One or two modern aircraft have managed to creep into the original 1919-1928 G-E sequence as well, for example Cessna 421 G-EAGL (geddit?) registered in 1979.

Incidentally, the CAA's G-INFO online database copes with interlopers and duplicated registrations by appending an extra 'X' on the end - so a search for the above HS125 returns G-BJCB and G-BJCBX, though of course the 'X' was never worn on the second aircraft.

G-AUTO was re-registered G-HOSP when the Jersey side of AA was sold off to become Aviation Beauport in 1986. G-HOSP then became the designated air ambulance aircraft flying under the callsign AVB999.

I used to be one of a group of schoolboys who frequented Fairoaks at weekends in the mid 1950's. The atmosphere was always free and easy and we could wlak around the live side of the airfield if we behaved ourselves! If we wrer there after 18.00 there was a chance to help the fitters push the aircraft into the hangar for over night.

G-APAA Auster Alpine arrived and I have to guess here the summer of 55 or 56. It did cause some amusement because the pilot had to wear the full uniform of the AA road motor cycle patrols of that time. That included the leather gaiters! It appeared to make mounting the Alpine a little tricky! We wondered if he had to salute other pilots who were also AA members. Such was the standard of school boy humour those days.

One occasion the Alpine was missing - it seemed odd to us. So we had a chat with one of the fitters and he told us the prop had come off over the adjacent town of Woking a couple of days earlier. Oh dear! I don't believe we saw it again after that and then a rumour circulated that the AA were looking for a twin engined replacement.

Some time later the Dragon Rapide arrived at Fairoaks. If I'm correct I think it was based there for a couple of years and then went elsewhere. But our bunch of half a dozen were unanimous that the livery was superb and I have to say today when I see a photograph occasionaly that yellow and black livery with old the enormous AA badge covering the fin and rudder still looks superb to my eye.