Hanworth Air Park

…..but nothing, sadly, about the Hanworth flying clubs!

Try AiX too, some good info on there
http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community/showthread.php?2198-Hanworth

Some great aerial pictures are now available to view online of Hanworth/London air park from the ’20/30’s including the Graf Zeppelin visit, also the Whitehead aircraft factory which adjoined the air park.
http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/asearch?search=hanworth
(if you register you can zoom in for a lot more detail)

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It seems that flying club activities at Hanworth were under the auspices of National Flying Services from November 1928 to October 1934 and then of its successor, London Air Park Flying Club, from the latter date until, presumably, September 1939. Did the LAPFC reform after hostilities had ceased? If so, under what name and until when? And if it did, what became of it – or its successor – when, after Heathrow coming into operation in 1946, private flying at Hanworth ceased to be practical?

Hanworth Air Park

A very good history on this airfield is the book ” Coming into Land” by Tim Sherwood which has photographs showing the Air Park when it was at it’s prime just before WW2 with much very activity and some aircraft manufacturing also.
This book is probably available still from Hounslow library, local studies department- contact James Marshall. 0845 456 2800.
an excellent buy for about £11.99 incl postage and includes all you need to know about Heston, Hounslow and the orginal Heathrow (Harmonsworth) aerodromes.

I have a 42 page booklet called “Hanworth Air Park 1916-1949” produced by the Feltham Arts Asociation in 1992 for £3. Copies might still be available from the local studies Hounslow library.

…and from the IWM, too was this at Hanworth?

General Aircraft Limited were based at Hanworth/Feltham, but unsure if that is where the picture is taken.
It is one of the GAL.56s which were flying-wing research aircraft, three were built, TS507, ‘510, & ‘513. I think the ‘V Wing’ caption in the photo might refer to the ‘V Maximum’ stage swept wing which was flown on TS513.
Sadly the renowned glider pilot Robert Kronfeld was killed while testing TS507 out of Lasham airfield.
If anyone is wondering how the heck GAL’s giant Universal Freighter prototype was flown at Hanworth, it wasn’t, instead being roaded from Hanworth to Brough, servining as the prototype to the Blackburn B-101 Beverley.

Thank you chaps for the information posted, and Ian, I’ve PM’d my email address to you.

Does anyone know if the airfield used to be on both sides on Hanworth House, or just to the North East, where the playing fields are now located? I realise now that when I strolled ’round the open area years ago (now called Hanworth Park) that I might have been on the wrong side of the House to the airfield.

Hanworth…the London Air Park

Hanworth has a Wikipedia as the London Air Park http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Air_Park
written mainly by a very thorough local Aviation Historian…….possibly a useful alternative search term for Getty and Pathe etc

and the revamped IWM website have a Hotspur pic at ‘Feltham’ (another name) pic by searching General Aircraft
(and, wow, the hot-linking works direct from the IWM site!!)
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AIRCRAFT OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939-1945; GENERAL AIRCRAFT GAL.48 HOTSPUR.
BRITISH POST WAR AIRCRAFT

The Heston Airport Yahoo Group has a little material on the neighbouring airfields which includes Hanworth( [email]HestonAirport-subscribe@yahoogroups.com[/email] )
The biography of Charles Hughesdon ‘Flying made it happen’ has material on Hanworth.A central figure in UK Aviation Insurance, he set up the Insurance Flying Club at Hanworth in the 30s, then ferried and test-flew aircraft from Hanworth in WWII. (The most remarkable story in the book however concerns the SAS DC-6/York collision over North Middlesex where Hughesdon records that a lawyer took a ‘present’ from the Underwriters of £5,000 for persuading the Treasury Solicitor to authorize a Crown damage payment to SAS (after the accident was blamed on the RAF York))

The FlightGlobal archive searched year by year for Hanworth should bring up plenty.
On the Air-Britain abix forum it was noted that David Brown (Aston Martin) used to clear customs from Hanworth in his Dove Executive plane as late as 1956 (with Heathrow only 2 miles away)

Chitts
I can email you a copy of 2 postcards aerial shots showing the hotel and hangers and one aerial photo I have.
Ian

Take a look at http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/151003-west-london-airfields-heston-hanworth-hounslow.html and you’ll find quite a few kindred spirits!

According to early editions of “Wrecks & Relics” there were some Sea Hornet outer wings stored there in the 1960s. By the time I visited in the early 1980s most of the hangars were derelict and one had been demolished.

I gather that a quantity of GAL drawings, papers etc were discovered in an old bomb-shelter on the site several years ago, unfortuntately most had already been burnt in a nearby skip but some were rescued … don’t know by who though.