Looks like its now closed until 1300Z. Hope this all gets sorted out soon.

That is not quite true. I regularly (in the summer anyway) fly from a closed airfield, out of hours. We have a verbal agreement that residents can come and go up until sunset or after sunrise despite the AD being closed.

Insurance is not an issue.

It turns out that the ac I was concerned with is away in any event. I have been in a similar situation with a boat which was moored at a bankrupt repairer. The administrators tried to hold on to all the craft whether they had been worked on or not. It took a court order to get it back. If I had simply sailed it away they could have done nothing about it. I feel that the same applied to ac.

Another NOTAM in place now, closed 13:00 - 15:00.

Lets see what happens in a couple of hours. Fingers crossed.

Airfield
 

Don't quote me but I am sure that there is an condition with Adur council that the site must be an aerodrome for a number (not sure but quite a while) of years.

Who said that Shoreham should downgrade to A/G. Complete nonsense. It's one of the UK's busiest airfields and last checked in the top three of training/club airfields. I had people questioning me on this fact before. So before you do, check the CAA website for aerodrome movements.

Turning EGKA into an A/G airfield would bring, mayhem, madness and accidents.

Shoreham opened at 14.30. Totally disagree with jamestkirk about A/G. An upgrade to this staus would make Shoreham a better, safer and more efficient place to fly.

Who is responsible for this debacle?

I heard certain individuals have, in a nutshell, screwed this up big time, costing a lot of people a lot of money and heartache whilst at the same time nicely lining their own pockets.

Is there any truth in this?

Tigerbatics - not sure what you mean by that - Shoreham currently has full ATC so becoming A/G would be a downgrade not an upgrade. ATC there have always been excellent.

Erinaceous have featured in business write ups over the last year or more. I could only find this one in the Sunday Times, but there were others detailing the incestuous links and financial derring do within the company. I was always suspicious that as a property firm, their purchase of Fairoaks was speculation that it could be turned into another Surrey village.

vancouv
 

Read again. You got it the wrong way round.

Without ATC (and Shoreham ATC is one of the best and most helpful around) the place would be mayhem. It would be like Stapleford or Wellesbourne on a sunny Sunday but several times worse.

No radio would be even better and with a large flat grass area what is the point of a runway? A simple and well thought out procedure exists for such cases. So the cross wind landing could be abolished as well.

Where would that be? Not at Shoreham, for sure.

Conspiracy theory
 

It's still strange they closed Shoreham but left Fairoaks open. Given that Fairoaks is perfect surrey village high ££££££££££ real estate material. Maybe they are keeping it going as it's got the most value ?

Hopefully there's far to many nimbys around chobham \ ottershaw way.

Just heard from a friend that Shoream as closed and he heard it on the news ????

Whats happening ??

G.B

Vancouv,

I totally agree with Tigerbatics. A/G would in many pilot's eyes be an upgrade. Pilots would have to make their own decisions and not have to rely on ATC to do it for them. In my view, it would become safer, more efficient and would certainly attract me back there. Having full ATC does not make things any safer.......

ATC are there only to facilitate the pilot's needs and not the other way round. Shoreham ATC conveniently forgot this many years ago

Probably worth your while taking a peek in the PPRuNe Private Flying forum. Lots of info there.

Chuffer - I learnt to fly at Shoreham, and have done all my flying from there, and I have to disagree with you. ATC have always been excellent, and very accommodating.

I can see that full ATC is not required at all airfields, but Shoreham has a greater mix of different types and I don't think making it A/G would improve safety, quite the reverse. Plenty of pilots are capable of flying safely, but in my experience plenty are morons who don't - ATC does help to protect you against them in a busy environment.

I can personally attest to the truth of that speculation as I am from Ottershaw. What I cannot speculate on is the possible benefit of selling fairoaks for housing development.

The NIMBYs have/do/will moan about aircraft noise (oh, the number of noise complaints I took when I was there in my first job), but it has to be preferable to the congestion that would inevitably result on the A319 and A320. It's bad enough as it is.

I was somewhat uneasy when I heard about Erinaceous's involvement at Fairaoks (from here - there was virtually no coverage in the Surrey Herald about it), but my feeling is that the local residents would regard an active airfield as the lesser of two evils in this case.

As to the wranglings/involvement of Longmint, I really couldn't say.

Foxy

Fast Helis
 

Does this mean Fast has gone into administration as well?