No, I never heard of the concrete carrier! I was an apprentice with Westlands at Hayes, until they suggested I would be better suited to a different career. The last couple of Gannets were being completed when I joined them in August 1962. After that it was all Scouts and Wasps, with subassemblies being made for Wessex and Gnome Whirlwinds. All the finished products were roaded to White Waltham for test and flight. Some of the apprentices were based at WW and soon learn the art of draining fuel from the Daks for their cars and motorbikes…
My cycle ride was about 15 miles each way…
I flew in Chipmunks from WW in 1959-1961 as an ATC Cadet, once overflying the Rotordyne which had its rotor turning, as if about to take off. On one occasion it flew into the Hayes factory to be fitted out with seats for the Farnborough show of that year. Now that was impressive as the landing area wasn’t much bigger than the Rotordyne, plus it had the high EMI factory just across the railway line to avoid.
I got my PPL at Cranfield in a rather tatty Auster and thereafter regularly popped into WW to top up the tank of whatever I was flying at the time.
Wow! The Gannet runway was still there when I learned to fly there. Did you know that there was a strip of concrete used by the Gannets to test carrier landings? When I was a small child a group of us kids cycled six miles to WW for the adventure. There was an all-red RAF Chipmunk doing circuits right over our heads (we were on the far end of runway 21). I heard it was prince charles training to fly. I do recall in the mid/late 1960s (again as a child) seeing the Fairey Surveys’ Daks and Doves from the RAF houses opposite. As a civilian pilot I used to do circuits alongside the RAF T21 gliders. But I am sure that Fairey Avn was gone by then – no exotic aeroplanes on the north side, just the air cadets in their flying brick gliders and us chickens in PA28s on the east side where all the light planes were. Your White Waltham Dakota photo really brought back good memories. Thank you.
Here is a pic of Whiskey Charlie in 1980 at White Waltham.
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