Hell has, indeed, frozen over. This showed up in my FB feed about aircraft sales:
London Southend Airport is repeating and increasing its offer for pilot circuit training. Available until the end of March 2021, the Airport is offering five or more circuits for just £5.
“Not only do these allow a fantastic opportunity to train at London’s newest airport but with slots available between 07:00 – 23:00 there are many opportunities for ideal lighting conditions for night rating,” said a statement by the Airport.
Free parking is also included where available for the first 24 hours and while landing fees apply there is still a significant saving.
The offer is applicable to aircraft with MTOW of 2.4T and below. PPR is required via Southend ATC and bookings can only be made a maximum of 24 hours in advance. Five or more touch and goes must be completed to qualify for the deal. Parking is limited so must be confirmed in advance.
Glyn Jones, CEO of London Southend Airport, said, “Supporting training and development within the industry is very important to London Southend Airport.
“In usual circumstances we are limited on the number of General Aviation slots that we can offer due to commercial and cargo operations. However whilst some of our airline partners have reduced schedules due to Covid, we identified an opportunity to support pilots with training.
London’s newest airport? Someone in Southend needs a geography lesson, it’s 40 miles from central London. If you think you’ve arrived at a London airport when you get to Southend, the taxi fare is going to be a shock :-)
(And let’s not get started on Lydd, which renamed itself London Ashford despite being nowhere near either London nor Ashford!)
Don’t forget London Oxford and London Prestwick.
I guess the pennies are being pinched at Southend.
alioth wrote:
Someone in Southend needs a geography lesson, it’s 40 miles from central London. If you think you’ve arrived at a London airport when you get to Southend, the taxi fare is going to be a shock :-)
:) It’s still OK, 52min on a train to Liverpool street station…
alioth wrote:
London’s newest airport? Someone in Southend needs a geography lesson, it’s 40 miles from central London. If you think you’ve arrived at a London airport when you get to Southend, the taxi fare is going to be a shock :-)
To be fair it’s the “closest GA airport to London” if you don’t have a car or not taxing taxi, you land 5min out and 45min train you are at Liverpool Street, the other one is “Headcorn London airport”, anything else need a taxi budget and maybe +60min
I have diverted there due to weather few times, while going to pick aircraft & car next day, overall happy with hassle times & the bills, even my wife things it’s a good deal to end up there than at Lydd or Biggin
I need more “public transport commute” to London/Stansted & London/Luton, not sure how much Signature charge for landing there though
Ibra wrote:
I need more “public transport commute” to London/Stansted & London/Luton, not sure how much Signature charge for landing there though
Here:
https://www.euroga.org/forums/trips-airports/10637-uk-regional-airports-price-league-table-757kg
EXPENSIVE.
This is an excellent incentive. Unfortunately as we don’t have lights at my home base it does make it a little tricky.
When I lived in London, I used Southend a couple of times for CAT. Was actually quite pleasant and as I lived close to Liverpool St, very convenient. Have flown there on GA once or twice, but ages ago when they still had that old Vulcan (?) bomber parked there.
I did a bit of my FAA CPL out of EGMC in 2007 or so, with a long-defunct outfit. I remember being forced to park on a bit of grass where I got bogged down (it rained) and the fire crew could not move it with a van (the wheels spun) so they brought a fire engine and I stopped them just in time from ripping off the nose gear; as with the van it had to use a rope around the main wheels.
At other times I had hard parking ok, but can’t remember where. There clearly is GA hard parking there, if you have an arrangement with some hangar firm.
A TB21 owner I used to know was paying £7500/year for hangarage.
On google maps I see only grass parking, which reduces the utility to a low level much of the year. A bit like Scilly Isles
There is no dedicated GA apron for visitors, no chance of e.g. doing a fly-in there, so the instant the cheap airlines come back, they will toss GA back out.
Flying to EGMC is also a significant risk; a 10 second mistake around that bit of the LTMA will land you in this. EGMC tower cannot clear you to any part of the LTMA, not least – for VFR traffic – because it is Class A.
Peter, been there at least a decade later, hard parking. Just like all other people from my school, almost everyone does – good place to go in case of bad weather.
Not sure if there is enough parking for a fly-in! :) They do have two parts – one is critical infrastructure, another one is OK.
And while you had to book a slot a year ago for, say, practised IAP approaches, all was fine if you actually land there.
BTW if you use LARS from Southend, they are quite proactive in terms of CAS busts, at least they were for the last half a decade.
If general, for people north of London EGMC is a very good alternate/backup option (ILS at both ends as well). At least I don’t know any other option.