Box Brownie gems

Well i thought someone would have noticed the Comper Swift G-ABUS lurking in the background.
This is still exists (stored in the UK again) it is believed.
I am looking at a genuine rudder off a Swift as i type.(lost for years).

Unfortunately DB the Tourist Board fail to mention the empty and derilict hotels and reducing ‘spend per head’ of the tourists.
This is because the Tourist Board are not actually in the real world tourist business, but sit behind computers trying to manipulate (last years figures) rather than getting out to generate new business.
One of the problems is we see plenty of TV adverts for holidays in Wales,Scotland,Ireland etc,and our response is a spokesman from the TB promoting the ‘new website’ (which looks very similar to the old website).
Cornwall has some fantastic scenery and stunning coastline,but the distance from other parts of the UK makes it a bit of a haul for a w-end visit therefore loosing a fair slice of that business.
Anyway we have a bigger priority to keep Perranporth open as ‘normal’ airfield and trying to preserve its wartime heritage.

Cornwalls Tourism

TO 23 Is quite correct; Cornwalls tourist ‘industry’ (like other traditional holidy areas) has severe problems,one of which is an ‘over supply’ of attractions,and the other being the less time visitors are spending here at any one visit.
Eden has been getting ‘Hand Outs’ ever since it started,and despite trying to reinvent itself as some sort of ‘Green University’ it is effectively a subsidised operation (and charity) that is unsustainable on its own feet.
This is one of several ‘subsidised’ operations,all of which are suffering large drops in visitor numbers.It could be said that the private sector attractions (who actually employ local people and pay enormous business rates ) are subsidising their competition.
The reality of the situation is that it has to really happen in the 6 weeks of the main season (weather included).
Airbase (Classic Air Force) have moved from a location that had several million people within a 30 mile radius to a location that has less than 1/2 million (and lowest GDP in the Country).
The average number of days that a visitor visits any attraction* during a given stay is 1.4 days.*This includes some main players like St Mich Mount,St Ives,and Padstow,so if you do the maths on the back of an envelope the cake is not that big (and is shrinking).

Sabre Tempest/Typhoon

A Sabre running in both aircraft types would have made an unforgetable spectacle for the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.Plus a H&S doing a dummy scramble.

Arden Collection

I visited BA in the 70’s in an attempt to obtain a Pobjoy engine from him.
He had several stored at the farm, and indeed on the way to find his door i noticed some (complete with cowlings) poking out of a barn.
I think he was fed up with people bothering him about the aircraft and engines,plus there was the issue of what they were worth.
He had decided that their value was ‘climbing’ like mad so it was years before anyone actually prised any away.
As it happened i was eventually offered two crated Pobjoys from a garden in Streatham (London SW16),and years later obtained one of Berts engines in a swap for a continental G0300 core,so we made it in the end.
It was reputed he had one of the few Pobjoy V (130 hp) (Fleet Shadower) motors,but no one seems to be able to confirm this. This would make a Comper Swift a real hot ship!.Great engine as long as you change the ex valves to a modern material.
His real gripe was that he had run an airfield at the farm for years and said his activities were curtailed when Exeter Airport expanded,plus i think there was also an issue with a new road going through the property.

Planning reforms

We are talking Cornwall here,you set your watch back 20 years as they do the ‘planning thing’ their own way.
Of course that can make it quite nice to live with, but the planning thing is very much a ‘local’ thing.
Letters disappear out of planning files,and rules are changed like the weather.
In planning terms Perranporth is very secure,as it has no restrictions or constraints on aircraft movements.
The insecurity comes from potential changes of ownership and ensuring it stays as an aviation based location.

Perranporth purchase

I am not proposing a business plan for Perranporth,but it is a fact that it is on the market again,and is home to far more machines than Newquay (which is subsidised by Cornwall Council to about £4.000.000 per year)
For the price of a house you get over 300 acres,three runways plus a brand new hangar.
Newquays single runway causes many problems with many types x-wind limits,and only had limited civil availability when Perranporth was first licenced.
The current PP owner operated his business in conjunction with the airfield and there is no reason that someone else could not do the same.
The airfield itself is fairly safe from normal development but is probably an option for solar or wind farm use.
With Lands End not an option for a club or hangarage,and Plymouth gone,PP is the only private base in Cornwall with all weather runways,and it looks like L-End will have to build runways to offer a year round service to the Scilly Isles.Not a level playing ground, with PP contributing jobs and rates to the local economy, and NQY a huge drain on it.
PP has no formal involvement with any trust or society,it has flying and parachute clubs,aircraft groups,a maintenance operation,and private owners,but no gliding at present.The fact that a trust is showing an interest in obtaining it is just one of many options in play at the present time.PP is a GA field revolving around club and private use,NQY is a regional airport not really in the same business.At the recent well attended CAA safety evening for the general area 90% of those there were PP users.

Some of us did!!