Airport idea

[Pacific231G]

22 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

I've just thought of an almost-aircraft option : Pegwell Bay Hoverport, with a branch of the line to Ramsgate.

 

http://www.jameshovercraft.co.uk/hover/hoverports/pegwell_bay_hoverport.php

 

http://www.jameshovercraft.co.uk/hover/srn4/srn4_pegwell_bay.php

 

But the only model of the SR.N4 hovercraft I can find is 1:144 scale.

 

There is a prototype for this too. Boulogne "aeroglisseurs" which is at the tope of the beach just south of the cargo port's breakwater had its own station - little more than a platform in fact. It was though built alongside an existing (but by then little used) goods only line that formed a loop serving the steelworks and the commercial port. I used it several times and it was the quickest surface route from London to Paris and ISTR actually cheaper than the train-ferry-train routes.

AFAIK the platform and the track, whiich is technically still open,  are still there and there are photos of it here https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_de_Boulogne-Aéroglisseurs

[boxbrownie]

39 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

On Salisbury Plain of course David,  but not around Stonehenge.

Those blokes running around in green get everywhere.........useless at map reading 

[DavidB-AU]

11 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

On Salisbury Plain of course David,  but not around Stonehenge.

 

Well if George White had got his way with his second route to Bristol...

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

On 15/12/2019 at 00:23, Pacific231G said:

I'm having to dredge my memory but I remember exploring the Fairford branch with my father not long after it closed in 1962 . This was probably in 1963 when the track had been lifted but the station buidings were still intact and quite a lot of stuff was still on site. Around the site of Brize Norton station was a good place to experience the RAF Transport Command VC10s taking off from runway 25 (26 now) , You felt them as much as heard them......

You wouldn’t have experienced those RAF VC10s in 1963 though.

The first operational aircraft delivered to the RAF was in December 1966, just before Christmas, with the rest of the fleet delivered during 1967 and 1968.

 

Ron

[DavidB-AU]

Brize Norton was under USAF control between 1950 and 1966. In 1963 it would have been USAF bombers and tankers operating from there. Nos. 10 (Vickers VC10) and 56 (Short Belfast) Squadrons moved there in May 1967. The only RAF jet transports in 1963 were Comets operating out of RAF Lyneham.

 

Cheers

David

[Pacific231G]

9 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

You wouldn’t have experienced those RAF VC10s in 1963 though.

The first operational aircraft delivered to the RAF was in December 1966, just before Christmas, with the rest of the fleet delivered during 1967 and 1968.

 

Ron

 

7 hours ago, DavidB-AU said:

Brize Norton was under USAF control between 1950 and 1966. In 1963 it would have been USAF bombers and tankers operating from there. Nos. 10 (Vickers VC10) and 56 (Short Belfast) Squadrons moved there in May 1967. The only RAF jet transports in 1963 were Comets operating out of RAF Lyneham.

 

Cheers

David

Thanks for that David and Ron. Looking at the photos on the excellent  The Fairford Branch website, far more seemed to have survived for longer after closure than I'd realised and, looking at the airfield's history, there was a two year gap between SAC departing in April 1965 and the RAF transport squadrons arriving  in 1967.  I certainly never went there when the USAF was there so it must have been in that period, probably 1965 when the airfield was apparently disused, that we explored what was left of the railway and would have been able to walk along the line to the taxiway crossings. We certainly watched and felt VC10s taking off at Brize from the site of the railway so that must have been a later visit. 

 

I'm not sure how far along the line we got in exploring it, but we certainly walked part of its route as we met a couple of agricultural characters that have stuck in my mind. One was an elderly farmer living in a shack in a corner of the one large field he owned next to the line (his son who was also a farmer came with his tractor to work the field for him) and a one-man sawmill owner on one of the station sites who complained that he could no longer get his circular saw blades cut the way he wanted them that drew the timber into the blade; given the number of fingers he had missing I rather saw why they were no longer cut that way! 

[rob D2]

You may be better with a bit of tarmac and a low relief hangar.

 

bare in mind a standard runway is 45m wide, which scales out at 60cm I think in OO.

Also you can’t have buildings etc in the approach cone before it.

 

below is Gatwick, very close to the railway ( railway has a cable that if cut by an overrunning aircraft cuts the electric on the railways ).

note where the “ piano keys “ are with the arrows to it .a “ displaced threshold “ probably due obstacles 

 

other photo is grain branch, where the trains pass right next to a grass air strip , I think I’d go for that maybe .

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by rob D2
Can’t upload second , too much MB

[Dungrange]

13 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

 ( railway has a cable that if cut by an overrunning aircraft cuts the electric on the railways ).

 

That sounds like a good idea, as it ensures that you don't electrocute an aircraft that ends up on the railway.  However, is there any mechanism that would avoid cutting the power to an Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) that just happened to be passing on the railway at that time.  It would seem rather stupid removing power from an EMU as it passes the end of the runway and then letting the errant aircraft plough into it.  Maybe it doesn't matter if that cable is effectively on railway land, in which case the power would be cut just a second before impact.  Do you know where the cable is located?

 

 

[The Johnster]

Gatport Airwick; I knew it would come up sooner or later...  

 

If the cable cuts the power this is to reduce the danger of sparking setting fire to the crashed a/c rather than stopping trains that are too close to be stopped.  Most traffic stops at the station anyway and is not travelling at high speed.  It cuts traction power to electric trains of course but has no such effect on diesels, and of course there was still a lot of steam traffic when the airport opened.  I imagine it puts the signals to danger as well,

 

A similar arrangement was deployed in the Severn Tunnel, on the up side, fine gauge enough to be pulled apart by hand with a sharp tug,  This put the signals to danger and ran an alarm bell in the boxes at each end of the tunnel, which in the 1970s when I signed the road there were Bristol and Newport panels.  The idea was that the wire would be broken by any 'incident' in the tunnel but we were required to break it by hand anyway in such an event in case the incident had left it intact, assuming of course that it had left us intact...

[rob D2]

you can faintly see the cable here alongside the railway 

 

 

 

[PMP]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Gatport Airwick; I knew it would come up sooner or later...  

 

If the cable cuts the power this is to reduce the danger of sparking setting fire to the crashed a/c rather than stopping trains that are too close to be stopped.  Most traffic stops at the station anyway and is not travelling at high speed.  It cuts traction power to electric trains of course but has no such effect on diesels, and of course there was still a lot of steam traffic when the airport opened.  

The primary function of cutting the power is to prevent electrocution of any survivors or first responders. When survivors are escaping from an aircraft that’s just crashed the last thing they’re thinking of is ‘is this a electrified third rail system?’ Their primary concern appears to be can I get my bag out of the overhead bin?, rapidly followed by I need to take a selfie. In airfield accident training fire occurring during an incident is pretty much considered a default setting.

 

ATC units will have a priority communication line to the network rail centre/box dealing with that area, in the event of an incident that too will be used to halt rail traffic. Depending on the location if an aircraft has declared an emergency the rail traffic may be stopped as a precautionary measure, prior to the aircraft arrival.

[Banger Blue]

23 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

We certainly watched and felt VC10s taking off at Brize

I appreciate this is wandering (or flying) a touch off topic from the OP but VC-10s were certainly not the quietest aircraft on take-off! One of the trips I did on a VC-10, we routed through Dulles Airport in Washington DC, I recall one of the aircrew saying that we would cost the RAF/MOD somewhere in the region of $10,000 in fines as when the VC-10 takes off from Dulles it breaks the local Noise Pollution limits.

[The Johnster]

The passenger cabin was quiet as it was ahead of the engines, and BOAC marketed it as the 'whisperjet' to follow the Britannia 'whispering giant'.  My main memory of them was taking off from St Athan, and they certainly made a bit of a racket, comparable to a Vulcan!  I assumed that military planes were noisier than civil airliners because some sort of silencer had been removed to improve performance.

Edited December 17, 2019 by The Johnster

[PMP]

Civil and RAF VC10’s made pretty much the same amount of noise, no hushkits were made for them. Civil VC10’s were withdrawn partly due to their noise footprint, they would never have met the ICAO chapter 2 noise level requirements, let alone the far more stringent chapter 3. Once transferred to the RAF the VC10’s were largely exempted from airport noise surcharges due to them being a military aircraft and no longer bound by ICAO requirements.

[The Johnster]

So, my assumption was an example of Shroedinger's correct, being capable of being considered partly right as well as completely wrong at the same time...

[wombatofludham]

Ahh, the dear old VC Din.  It's baby brother the 1-11 could be a shrieking banshee as well, I recall being in a car supermarket at the end of Birmingham's rollercoaster runway one Saturday helping a cousin choose a car.  Being me, I was more interested in the stuff climbing out over our heads, mainly Boeing 737-500s and Airbuses, which were reasonably tolerable and seemed to be climbing out quite well.  Then the  Milan departure which in those days was flown by Maersk using ex B-Cal 1-11 500s in BA livery, "hush kit" fitted, took off.  Well, staggered into the air would be more correct, and the noise triggered every car alarm in the plot.  I got to sample several 1-11s over the years and always had a soft spot for them as they first flew the same year I entered service in 1963.

Sorry, off topic.  I wonder if Oxford Diecast could be persuaded to do a 1:72 BAC1-11 in their aircraft range?

[rob D2]

This East Midlands gateway is very close to the runway .Might be some modellers licence in here somehwhere to have a container terminal even nearer the apron .

 

 

[GWR-fan]

Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport at one time had a railway line crossing an active runway.  The link details a collision between an Ansett DC3 and a train back in 1950.

 

http://www.spiritsofansett.com/history/train.html

 

[Markwj]

Was just trying to think how close the Blackpool south line runs to Blackpool airfield, I think it skirts one of the perimeters although there could be a bit of a golf course/ nature reserve between them. Now not much more than a branch line it was a double track mainline running into Blackpool central.

From the airport now not much more than pleasure flights and a helicopter terminal for the rigs in the Irish Sea but did have some commercial flights in the 90/ 2000's and is used when there are local air shows so I have seen the Lancaster bomber there!

[KeithMacdonald]

Looks like Blackpool has plenty of potential. Does anyone know what the original siding was for?

 

[Johann Marsbar]

2 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Looks like Blackpool has plenty of potential. Does anyone know what the original siding was for?

 

 

The airport was the location of a shadow factory for Vickers during the war, producing Wellington bombers. Presumably the rail siding dates from that time?

 

[Mark Pelham]

I had considered a layout with an airport feature; it probably would have been limited to remote parking stands with aircraft undergoing maintenance. Hannants provide detailing parts for converting standard kits to something a little different, and I liked the idea of modeling a 747 from a certain monthly provider of my modeling credits with the flaps extended and engine cowls open undergoing maintenance. There is a surprising amount of detail that can be seen around the remote areas of an airport that can provide interest, and remote parking stands need little more separation from the railway than a strip of grass and security fences (both airport and railway).

 

If you look at some regional airports, and even the likes of Gatwick, remote stands are often used for early aircraft departures for the likes of Easyjet, so no reason not to have an A320 being prepared for departure without the need for a terminal building.

 

If you wanted a hangar, then it could be built low-relief, viewed from the non-apron side, and have the nose of an aircraft visible through open tug doors.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[HonestTom]

On ‎15‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 11:57, Pacific231G said:

On Salisbury Plain of course David,  but not around Stonehenge.

 

Then how did they get those big stones there?

[wombatofludham]

For anyone considering an OO airport themed layout, it appears "Mach 2" are greatly expanding their range of 1:72 airliner kits to include some suitable for 1960s-70s charter airlines, including the Bristol Britannia in Monarch, Caledonian (pre British) and British eagle liveries, a Comet 4 in Dan Dare livery (Dan Air were the largest operator of Comet 4s in the 1970s on bucket and spade flights to the Med) and for earlier layouts an Avro York flying brick in Skyways livery.  They also have a 1:72 VC10 kit.  I'll just leave that there for a moment to sink in.  A VC10.  In 1:72.  Mach 2, here's my credit card, do your worst...

They also have a Beech King Air 200 which would be very useful for a smaller layout featuring business/ general aviation activities.  All are currently available from multiple outlets on the Bay of Thief, worth checking out if you are interested.

[KeithMacdonald]

46 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

For anyone considering an OO airport themed layout, it appears "Mach 2" are greatly expanding their range of 1:72 airliner kits to include some suitable for 1960s-70s charter airlines, including the Bristol Britannia in Monarch, Caledonian (pre British) and British eagle liveries, a Comet 4 in Dan Dare livery (Dan Air were the largest operator of Comet 4s in the 1970s on bucket and spade flights to the Med) and for earlier layouts an Avro York flying brick in Skyways livery.  They also have a 1:72 VC10 kit.  I'll just leave that there for a moment to sink in.  A VC10.  In 1:72.  Mach 2, here's my credit card, do your worst...

They also have a Beech King Air 200 which would be very useful for a smaller layout featuring business/ general aviation activities.  All are currently available from multiple outlets on the Bay of Thief, worth checking out if you are interested.

 

DanAir Comet

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/MACHGP099?result-token=xja7q

 

BOAC VC10

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/MACHGP108?result-token=xja7q