Absolutely understandable and how it should be, why should any pilot, irrespective of the flavour, feel they have the right to fly in to an airfield of their choosing disturbing the activity and throw the teddy out the pram because they can't. Ridiculous!!

Fair enough naming and shaming down right ignorance and obnoxiousness but to extend it to including those that choose not to let you play with their train set is a step too far, IMO.

BB

You know, everyone who has come into my field because of bad weather has been so grateful to be on the ground, safe and with people who will help them with anything they want....

They have all volunteered to pay a landing fee! (I purposely do not mention landing fees just to see what happens)

ps. Myself, I wouldn't expect to fly in an aircraft worth thousands of pounds upwards and be let off with a landing fee. And if I valued my life at less than a landing fee - otherwise why on earth would I let a few digits on my credit card worry me into making a bad pilot decision - then I would question my sanity as a pilot. And if I had pax, my responsibility for them.

Maybe I just think diffferent from other people. I laugh when I get "pay day loan" texts offering me a £100 within an hour - it feels like I am spending almost £100 an hour at the moment! (well, this month's CC bill is 11k and last month's was too)

XRAYALPHA

I do not for one minute think a pilot who is in fear of his life will think, "Oh my God I am about to die but I cannot afford to land at airport X".

Normally an accident is a succession of bad decisions and the accident occurs as a culmination of those decisions.

Early on in the process Pilot Y may fly past an airfield thinking he will press on because he cannot afford heavy costs but at that point he maybe just slightly uncomfortable with something not quite right.

Pace

Years ago 3 Counties Aero Club at Blackbushe used to get its 150s/152s serviced at Lasham in 'Ned's Shed' situated just west of the main hangar on the north side. I was one of the club members occasionally asked to ferry aircraft down there.
SOP was to land on the grass area between the runway and the clubhouse/northern taxiway.
Going in there one day, I did a wide left hand circuit to 27, knowing the glider tugs normally but not always did right hands. Sure enough as I established at about half a mile, a tug with cable attached turned final from a right base in front of me. No sweat, he was clearly visible, but what did concern me was the glider/tug combination lined up on the grass, the glider with wings level, fortunately right next to the runway, thus leaving a strip to the right available for the tug and myself. Anyway I landed and taxied to Ned's Shed. After about 10 minutes, a guy wandered up from the cluhouse direction wearing a flying suit, pebble glasses and a cheesy grin. He asked if I was the one who had just landed and I said yes. He then berated me for landing on the wrong bit of grass, stating that where I had landed had been reserved for turf cutting and had large white crosses on it. I stated there had definitely been NO white crosses where I landed (I hadn't seen any anywhere in fact, and I checked for them when I taxied out to return to Blackbushe and still couldn't see them) and anyway a tug had landed on the same bit ahead of me. He refused to accept this saying I should have landed OVER the glider and tug, which as I said, had the glider at 'wings level' thus indicating it was about to depart! Now I'm not a fantastically experienced pilot, but I have done a fair bit of gliding as well as powered flying, and no way am I going to fly over a glider from 'above and behind' if I suspect it is about to launch, and I told him this. He left still maintaining I was in the wrong.
I think the attitude of this person was that although I was entitled to land there, he felt he had to make his mark to show I wasn't really welcome. Thankfully this was just one individual at Lasham and everyone else I've met there doesn't share this attitude.

I find this whole event rather saddening.

Whilst there are differing views on whether this constitutes an emergency (and that is purely the PICs decision) and Tatenhill's 'no flexwing, no non-radio' rule, had it been handled differently then Ghengis could have been posting a very glowing report of the airfield.

Tatenhill have gained one £12 landing fee and generated bad feeling in what is a small, close knit flying community. Handled differently, they are likely to have recouped that landing fee many times over, picked up a couple of prospective students and maybe another maintenance or avionics order.

I fly from Tatenhill and enjoy what it has to offer. For me, the positives outweigh the negatives but I find G's experience a great shame.

4b4

Genghis:
I'm one of the full-time instructors at Tatenhill. I'm so embarrassed, and can't apologise enough. It's unfortunate that you came in on my day off. If I had been on site then I would have helped to diffuse the situation. I shall be having a chat to the chap involved and management over the next couple of days.
What's really sad is that some of us are doing are best to make Tatenhill Airfield a more attractive place to visit.
I don't know what else to say.

Esperanza - thank you, and for the record, everybody else I met at Tatenhill was either looking embarrassed and staying out of the way or, far more commonly, utterly friendly and helpful.

The tower in particular were absolutely great when I went up to discuss departure procedures with them after I'd managed to get my intercom working but was still unsure of my radio.

G