Ferry service Farnborough to Twinwood Farm

My father was at the show when it happened and he vividly remembered the two engines flying through the air sadly into the audience. I believe John Derry and his observer are buried in Knebworth churchyard. I would like any aircraft stories at westcott or Thurleigh,and thank you for responding.

T21 and Newforest:

Thanks for acknowledging my post. Although I’m an avid reader of the forum I generally refrain from replying because most people seem to have much more detailed information than I could ever provide. I’m surprised that no-one else has weighed in on this subject – there were certainly plenty of passengers.

However, my early life was closely associated with the aircraft industry starting with growing up overlooking the Westland airfield at Yeovil (Lysander, Whirlwind and Wyvern) continuing through Farnborough (Wescott as noted, the Comet test tank and the Black Knight rocket), English Electric Aviation (wind tunnel at Warton) and finally back to Yeovil with Westland subsidiary Normalair. I had, at this point, been driven out of the industry by Harold Wilson and went off into the marine field. (The end of TSR2 was the end for me as well.)

I have a number of ideas and questions arising from my experiences so perhaps I’ll generate a couple of threads myself. (e.g. I was at the Farnborough Air Show in 1952 when the DH110 crash happened – any interest in an eyewitness account?)

Thank you pdryan for your reply this is exactly the sort of material that will be lost to time and it is important to record it now before it is lost.

Hi PD, not a prolific poster but worth its weight in gold when you do!:)

To describe the service as an air taxi service is a bit of an exaggeration.

It ran most working days, weather permitting, and served as the inter establishment mail service, providing a number of seats at the same time.

I can only remember the use of Ansons (I think there were two that were more or less dedicated for the run) and one of the more interesting aspects of the flights was that the pilots were drawn on a rotating basis from the rather elite corps of Farnborough test pilots. Because this bunch included a number of unique individuals, a number of hair raising escapades were concocted to enliven the otherwise boring flights (such as taking off down wind at Wescott to confound the one and only fire truck which was parked at the upwind end of the runway!) One doesn’t normally associate this sort of thing with flying in Ansons!

I was a Student Apprentice at Farnborough (53-58) and one of my training postings was at Wescott for 3 months in 1957. I had digs in Aylesbury and rode my bicycle out to Wescott each day along the A41. As an S.A. I was supposed to get as much flying time as possible just for the experience value so I was often able to get on the ‘air taxi’ when a spare seat became available (often up front).

As a side comment to Newforest’s posting, this was long before BAE Systems came into existance – it was strictly an MOD operation. Also the fuels in use at that time were mainly Kerosene/Lox and Kerosene/HTP. I believe that the oxidisers came from commercial sources (BOC?) because I can remember the HTP tankers with large warning labels passing me on the A41.

I’ll be happy to try and resurrect some more memories of 50 years ago if anyone is interested!

This map shows the airfield at Westcott.

http://www.multimap.com/maps/#t=l&map=51.84535,-0.97218|15|8&loc=GB:51.84535:-0.97218:15

And a description of the site from:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan-turnbull/secret2.htm

Presumably the fuels at Roxel’s Summerfield plant were also transported for use by the Rocket Propulsion Establishment (RPE), formerly run by BAe Systems, at Westcott in Buckinghamshire.

The majority of the site is now given over to the Westcott Venture Park, hosting dozens of industrial companies. However, BAe Systems still have a key office there.

It specialises in advising worldwide clients on the environmental issues involved in decommissioning and converting old MoD related sites, once associated with the storage and testing of ordnance and dangerous chemicals, to “normal” use. How apt!

As soon as the hi-res aerial photography of RPE Westcott became available on Google Earth, many enthusiastic readers of “Secret Bases” contacted me, excited at spotting an apparent SIGINT enclave just to the north.

They were convinced that the remote depot – in the middle of farmers’ fields, ringed by fortress-like security and with an obvious communications tower – was in covert use by SIS or GCHQ. My correspondents were surprised that I’d overlooked it!

However, reality is rather more mundane! A bit of research revealed that it is actually Transco’s Aylesbury Gas Compressor Station, utilising huge Rolls-Royce turbines and connected into a major underground pipeline