Future Flyin Not at Kemble Please

[Lawrence Rippon]

Reports coming in from other pilots that Kemble (Where we have had our fly-in for the last two years) are now running Range Rovers up and down the runway for up to an hour at a time closing the runway. Pilots are being held at the end of the runway for in one case 45 mins until they are finished. The short bumpy grass is still available during this time. Ironic as that was what I thought a Range Rover was for.

I would suggest that this sort of activity while profitable for the airfield is not the sort of thing we want to support by having fly-ins there in the future.

Money talks, it seems that Range Rover's money is talking the loudest at the moment.

 

[mdoerr]

Re: Future Flyin Not at Kemble Please

Not a nice development at all. In Furstenfeldbruck BMW took over the whole airfield. Shame on them.

 

[FS]

Re: Future Flyin Not at Kemble Please

I would suggest that this sort of activity while profitable for the airfield is not the sort of thing we want to support by having fly-ins there in the future.

Is this a permanent change to field operations?

Here in NY, the airport where I'm based occasionally closes off the area where my airplane is hangared. We had a movie being filmed at the airport for a week. There was a stage set up at the taxiway/runway nearest our hangars, and the landlord (not the airport authority) rented out hangar space for the actors and extras to use as a dress/makeup area. We were told that as a result of the income being paid by the movie company our hangar rents would not increase for 2013 (and they did not, though I'm afraid to see what the increase might be for 2014).

There's also an annual running event which closes off access to the taxiway for one day. In that case, no income is generated (as far as I'm aware) so it doesn't affect our hangar rents. There was also a charity boxing event held in one of the large hangars, which also did not reduce our rents even though the entire hangar area was off limits to aircraft that night.

It's a commercial airport, so Southwest Airlines and the other carriers wouldn't be happy if the entire field were to be closed. And since it's my home airport boycotting the field isn't much of an option.

It's a bit annoying though that all the activity happens where my hangar is located, and not across the field where many other hangars are located. On the other hand, it's all been temporary and we were given ample notice and opportunity to move the airplanes to another section of the airport if we needed to do any flying during those activity periods.