M-Baker to be homeless ?
 

https://www.flyer.co.uk/battle-chalgrove-airport-hots/

The future for Chalgrove Airfield as an airfield looks bleak. Homes England, the government agency tasked with delivering new homes and jobs on publically owned sites in England, said this week that it would issue a Compulsory Purchase Order if the current tenants, Martin-Baker, refused to work with the agency.

Why do they still need their own dedicated airfield for a fleet of two Meteor's? Surely they could locate these at Farnborough, Boscombe Down or even Northolt which is just down the road from their main factory.

Farnborough? That's a civilian business airport now, not a Research/T&E establishment.

Does it need to be a Research / T&E establishment to host a couple of Meteor's?

I worked for Flight Refuelling (now Cobham) in the 70s and 80s and in 1980 we relocated all our military test flying using Sea Vixen and Canberra aircraft from the legacy military Tarrant Rushton airfield to Bournemouth Airport....entirely a civilian airport. Why would MB be different?

Could they carry out live ejections over a civvy airfield with the necessary emergency cover on standby?

If Homes England cut up rough, how about relocating the flying to RAF Benson?

Linedog, good point, so the helicopter people at BO may not want bits dropping on their choppers.

I don't know exactly how they run their testing (or how frequently); assuming they test their seats above the airfield, wouldn't that cause one or two issues for all the other users?

Most of the 'sexy' seat testing happens at Langford Lodge (Near Aldergrove).

What with Homes England threatening the CPO it makes you wonder if the Government actually wants to support UK Businesses?

Oxford and the surrounding area already has enough new build rabbit hutch sized houses going up, don't need any more put them elsewhere! Out of interest, I wonder how much Homes England paid for the airfield or was it a simple transfer with incumbent tenant?

Finally, if I was MB the relocation package really would have to be a very, very good offer otherwise I could see some better offers coming in from more appreciative hosts who would dearly like to host the worlds leader in bang seat technology... Plenty of space in say Trumps back yard or Canada or....

After Brexit, France & Germany might be attractive.

Italy, Spain, Poland . . . The list goes on. :(

Time to find some sort of endangered grasshopper on the site, that will stop the developers in their tracks.

The cynic in me wonders if this plan to possibly build on the place was put forward before MB put their hands up and admitted guilt over the Reds ejection. The cynic in me also wonders if it will be quietly dropped now.

Now the Meteors are Civil Registered I believe they can’t carry out ejection seat testing in UK airspace. The last set of trials for F-35 seats had to be undertaken in France.

....or Great Crested Newts. They're always a show-stopper.

I believe the housing plans for Chalgrove have been knocking around for a couple of years, with big protests among the local community who don't want it to happen, and support MB staying on site.

As you say, maybe MB's 'refusal' to leave the site, is the trade off with HMG over the compulsory purchase order, and as you say, the housing plans will now get dropped...?

Go where the biggest market is= USA

looks to me as if the housing people were waiting for the trial to start... much harder for MB to drum up support in papers like the torygraph or Wail right now

As someone up-thread mentioned, why not relocate to RAF Benson only 3 miles away - assuming of course any testing MB currently do at Chalgrove does not interfere with normal airfield ops.

Interestingly Wiki says that Chalgrove Airfield is very secure and "surrounded by high fences". Am curious as to why this is - surely the testing of ejector seats is not hugely secret?

And again to quote someone up-thread, what actually happens at Chalgrove now if most of the actual testing takes place in Northern Ireland? Is it now just a base for the two Meteor's - in which case they could surely be based at Benson or Northolt?

Can't see the Meatboxes being allowed to operate out of Northolt.... (as much as it would be nice to see)