Today at Penzance Heliport
The clear-out is nearly complete, the fire-truck was transported to Newquay, but you could still get a cup of tea at the counter:)
Heliport Tea Break by A30yoyo, on Flickr
Heliport Fire Truck goes by A30yoyo, on Flickr
There was a cafe with a juke-box which I visited on the opposite side of the Bath Rd from the Northside terminal around 1957 which I have been told was also called the Green Dragon so perhaps the business moved over to the building by the control tower about 1958/1959. I have read of a cafe near the terminal called Ben’s but don’t know if it was inside or outside the airfield or if it was just another name for the Green Dragon.
I remember the main doorway to the ‘Dragon’ but like you mainly used the handy ‘back-door’…I remember playing a lot of chess on miniature boards between spotting sessions around 1960/1961
there is a larger scan of the 747 shot on flickr
Photo by (and uploaded for)pobjoy pete
I popped in this evening to see the final flight come in and say goodbye to some of the team (including former ones who turned up).
The last flight came in late,no doubt due to a tearful departure event,and was greeted by many wellwishers.FJ took a rotors running refuel and eventually departed to NQY.
Standing in the front of an (empty of aircraft) hangar i enquired what was to happen with the structure and the answer seemed to indicate it will be rapidly demolished !!,thereby ensuring the site is deemed as abandoned for aviation use,and clearing the decks for a s-mkt.
A sad day for PZ and also a warning that the all powerful s-mkts continue to erode us of facilities that are unfortunate enough to be located on ‘development land'(former rubbish tip).This sorry tale has seen a valuable transport facility sacrificed to the God of retail !!!! RIP.
I think BIH did absolutely the right thing from the business point of view….£4million for the land is not to be sniffed at….the lack of vision goes back to the local authorities and the thrombotic British planning laws…in BIH’s defence they did project a new heliport at St Erth but the nimbys shot that down and why should BIH spend any money fighting for it?
I went to a talk by a Skybus official recently (they’re spending money on a new Land’s End terminal) and I asked him what would be the ideal site for fixed wing ops…he said the heliport site! 🙂
They had a chance 25 years ago….and if you look at the land behind the heliport the potential is still there….but it won’t happen
Here’s a view of the (wet) heliport at 1600 today with the penultimate S-61 in the air, I just heard the last outbound for St Mary’s over Penzance at 1700
Gave PZ a call on 118.1 yersterday;wished them luck, and thanked them for 36 years (for me) of a traffic info service in the PZ area.The final flight will come back from SCY at 17.30 today and then the last 61 will depart to NQY,leaving no aircraft on site.
Still unsure what will happen to the location in the short term as there is a possibility of a judicial review regarding the granting of planning permission for a supermarket.
Needless to say the weather forecast this week will only fuel concerns regarding the loss of this service in the winter months.
For Penzance this will be the end of an aviation link going back to 1964,which of course was to replace the BEA Rapides that had operated from St Just.
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