Classic Flight Announce Newquay Closure

It did.

There was a quick air test, load up, refuel and then gone…..

Took photos, but unable to load on this website.

The Anson it seems left Newquay yesterday destined for Coventry. This was the last airworthy aeroplane to leave Cornwall. Now only the statics remain and a few of these are also to follow in the same direction.

As I understand it the Trust still do; they’re just moving location?

Just out of interest, who owns which airframes? I thought they had all been put in to a trust with a few exceptions.

From what I can gather, the Varsity, single seat Hunter and Sea Hawk are returning to Coventry and maybe the Harrier if the Navy says ‘yes’.

Martin

Also, not a word as to which (if any) machines will be returned to Coventry and which will be left to rot at St.Mawgan. Still no word from Newquay Airport and/or the council either, to suggest what miraculous developments will replace CAF. I see nothing good in this story at all 🙁

www.aeroplaneicons.com

We’re within 30 minutes of Britain’s second-largest city, and within ninety minutes’ drive for around fourteen million people. That’s a huge catchment, particularly set against less than one million within an hour and a half of Newquay.

And it took until now, after moving ‘stuff’ down to Kernow, to figure out where your biggest ‘audience’ lay?….

Hmmm……

Earlier today the following was posted on the FlyPast Facebook page – I hope it’s OK to cut and paste this!

Since the current issue of FlyPast closed for press, there has been a significant further development regarding AIRBASE at Coventry. Classic Air Force has now decided to close its Newquay facility and focus all operations at Coventry. Full press release below:

CLASSIC AIR FORCE TO FOCUS ON COVENTRY
Classic Air Force has announced plans to close its Newquay site, moving all of its operations back to its traditional base at Coventry. This follows a two-year pilot test of its outlying site at Newquay, Cornwall. Mike Collett, a trustee of the Classic Aircraft Trust, the charity of which CAF is the operating arm, explained the rationale: “The operating costs at Newquay have risen to a level that’s frankly unsupportable. Our focus is, and always will be, the continued care and protection of the collection. By putting all of our focus on Coventry we secure its future for generations to come.”
The decision allows investment to be concentrated on the long-standing base of operations for Classic Air Force. “We’re expanding and improving our Coventry AIRBASE to make it more visitor-friendly and turn it into a major Midlands attraction,” said Mike. “There’ll be a new reception, shop and café, more activities, like flight simulators and interactive exhibits. We’re within 30 minutes of Britain’s second-largest city, and within ninety minutes’ drive for around fourteen million people. That’s a huge catchment, particularly set against less than one million within an hour and a half of Newquay. We have to service it using the finite resources available to us. By putting all of those resources to work in one place – the place where we started out – we can fly more passengers and delight more visitors than has been possible for us before. It all starts with our grand re-opening on May 2nd.”
There’s been considerable buzz recently regarding adventure flying – the use of certain aircraft for passenger flying outside the requirement for Air Operator’s Certificate registration. Will Classic Air Force be offering such flights?
“If adventure flying becomes available later this year, as we hope it will, then that’s really exciting. We’re in discussions right now regarding exemptions for certain of our aircraft. Our experience as a certified Air Operator obviously puts us in a good position to provide exciting, unusual, but above all safe flights. With all of our flyable aircraft now centred in Coventry we could easily become the Adventure Flying capital of the UK.
“This is the year we really spread our wings.”
www.classicairforce.com

No idea Tim, I just remember some serious discussion when we thought it was going to be only Shack and Nimrod left at Coventry. I know that it quickly became apparent that this wouldn’t happen so we just watched from the sidelines as everything got packed up boxed and shipped off to Cornwall.

Well I guess that on the basis of all the comments on here, the people who did claim that St.Mawgan was to primarily be a CAF maintenance base were either wrong or simply telling fibs. Either way it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that if the base was set-up as a tourist attraction, then who on Earth imagined it would be a viable proposition? Surely, Mr Collett must be wise enough to have known that it would never have worked? The infamous Cornwall Aero Park ought to have been enough to indicate just how little tourist interest there is in aviation. Even the most romantic aeroplane fanatics can appreciate that it would never interest anyone other than a true enthusiast. This is why I’d be so interested to hear what CAF’s position is. Would they claim that they were simply mistaken? Surely not – would anyone have put so much money into something that seems so ill-advised? Or were they somehow “sold” some kind of vision that the Airport/Council ultimately didn’t deliver? Sounds more plausible to me, but if that’s the case, why isn’t CAF saying so? It all really does seem very, very odd.

www.aeroplaneicons.com

Funny… I seem to remember part of the reason we chose not to up sticks and move our Shackleton was because maintenance was staying at Coventry. Thats also why the decision was taken to re-open at weekends for public access.

The other thing that strikes me as funny is always the numbers. Comparing footfall at Coventry Airport to visitor numbers to Cornwall – as opposed to maybe visitor numbers to Newquay which is probably less than the millions quoted in some places. Either way, I’m sad its come to an end of sorts. It’ll be nice to see some of the aircraft return, but a shame that it happened the way it did.

Regards,

Rich

Nope – The various comments must be buried amongst the stuff in the PPrune, UKAR, Fightercontrol, Twitter and similar places, but I haven’t got the energy to bother looking! Besides, why bother, it will achieve nothing now – what’s done is done. Incidentally, if the Varsity doesn’t get rescued I hope you’ll clear a (big) space in your garden Baz! 🙂

Well not quite – I’ve said it a few times now but I think people either haven’t noticed, or they think I’m suffering from some sort of delusion! CAF stated repeatedly both on the internet and in direct comments to me that the St.Mawgan venture was ostensibly a maintenance/restoration facility and that attracting visitors was to be only a secondary “bonus” rather than a main motive.

Tim
Any chance of showing your source please. I’m struggling to find it.
Baz

I’d prefer to hear that from the Council, Airport or CAF, thanks 😉

Tim

You did….he is.

I’d prefer to hear that from the Council, Airport or CAF, thanks 😉

….it isn’t

However how can it be made to work for commercial use (airlines) when its really too remote and the road links are not first class.
Exactly – on the basis of what has happened so far, it’s hard to see how the site is ever likely to prosper. This is why I’m amazed that more effort hasn’t been given to persuading CAF to stay. As I said before, you’d think that a bit of visitor revenue would be better than nothing. One can only assume that either the Airport, Council or both, imagine that there are more lucrative uses for the area. But one has to wonder whether they’re deluding themselves. Worse still, perhaps it’s a repetition of the Sheffield Airport fiasco, in which the Council and Airport wilfully allowed the site to become uneconomic so that it could be sold-off for commercial development. I sincerely hope that this kind of chicanery isn’t behind it all.

The site is undoubtedly of importance . However how can it be made to work for commercial use (airlines) when its really too remote and the road links are not first class.

As to the airframes – there is realistically a limit to how many VC-10’s can be preserved -being in Cornwall isnt going to help ! As to the BAC 1-11 -it would be interesting to see it put on the N-reg for a ferry flight to Coventry -however thats probably wishful thinking!

I wasn’t referring to comments only on this forum – not sure what was said about the issue on here at the time. It matters not in any case, I was merely trying to assure you that if you doubt what I’ve said, you can find the comments if you care to look for them. But none of this matters much. As I said, it would certainly be interesting to know what the real motive of the move was, regardless of which people (inside or outside of CAF) regarded the base as a tourist attraction or a maintenance/restoration facility. Point is, the only view that matters is the real one, and CAF haven’t said what this was. As I said previously, the reason I’m intrigued to know the truth is because it obviously has some bearing on the wisdom of moving to St.Mawgan in the first place. But I guess in a wider sense even this doesn’t matter as it doesn’t affect the outcome. Either way, the end result seems to be a collection of “stranded” airframes that (even with the best will in the world) must be unlikely to survive for too long. Plus (as I said before), the future of the site must also be open to question and my view is that the site (ie- the former RAF St.Mawgan) is just as important as the aeroplanes.

www.aeroplaneicons.com

This thread really started it all : http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?117759-Airbase-Museum-moving-to-Newquay-BBC/page7&highlight=classic+air+force

Having read the vast majority of it again – havn’t found any reference to opening as a maintainance base and not as primarily an attraction.