Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
#1870630
CloudHound wrote:Ashcroft (Bryan’s Landing) and Ash House Farm rubbed along OK for many years.


And that's great. No-one is suggesting that these things won't be phenomenally successful.

I'm just trying to strike a note of caution. As a Deanlander from training, I have seen indirectly how much blood, sweat and tears goes into maintaining an airfield in spite of a minority of the public wanting to impede GA.

When Hamilton and Verstappen take each other out, it's the spectators who suffer :)
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By StratoTramp
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870636
Topical, though personally I like the controversy in F1 (watch the world burn). I actually think the Netflix documentary is better than watching the races.

What's the answer though, teaming up for combined events? advertising for each other in interspersed events? I think they should work together where possible. Can they help each other farming wise?
#1870698
I actually confess to having little interest or knowledge of F1, but will add the Netflix doc to the watch list!

I believe the two already work together in some ways; no circuits at DL, but I recall recently hearing that students went to KH for circuit practice, which seems eminently sensible and a good example of collaboration. I confess I haven't flown there since the start of the year though.

I don't think two airfields in close proximity necessarily need to work together, although (personally) I think it would increase safety to use a common frequency. Even though the two circuits are clearly separated, inbound/outbound traffic will share a common area and I just think it's an additional, unnecessary Swiss cheese hole to have two or more aircraft operating within 900 metres of each other (the distance from base leg on one to final on the other!) talking on different frequencies. It works fine if people are aware of the local nuances, but not everyone is, sadly.

The point I was making though was: Deanland is a lovely airfield, extremely well run with considerate owners and over the 5 years I've been flying to/from there, it's gone from strength to strength (reflecting back to the original men's lavatory, for evidence) and is a real success story running against the general trend of GA in the UK. Clearly, the exact same can be said for Kittyhawk: and we should celebrate this. It would be self-defeating if the combined success of both meant that safety was eroded, or traffic into one was unaware of the noise abatement areas of the other (the KH circuit diagram doesn't quite show the avoid areas to the North-East giving rise to the most complaints, for example) and - as a consequence - both ended up suffering. Given the fragility of light aviation and the influence that members of the local community can wield, I just feel that a common frequency would increase the safety margin a bit more, that's all.
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#1870704
I've been into both, and must admit I don't really see the problem provided you've a good look out and fly reasonable circuits. My first trip to Kittyhawk was after I totally failed to get a response from deanland to my ppr requests. I was impressed with Kittyhawk effectively having automatic grant of ppr following your e-mail unless you hear otherwise.

Safetycom works perfectly well for strips that are near each other, but I do realise in that part of the world that it's a pretty busy frequency.

Great to see airfields doing well.
By IO390
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1871268
Having recently started flying from Deanland, it seems DL is far more busy than KH. Have done about 20hrs from Deanland in the last month and have yet to see a movement at KH when I've been flying.

Only issue I've had at Deanland was today when an R44 appeared in front of me, at circuit height, when I turned downwind. They weren't arriving or departing, just flying past (exactly at circuit height and on the downwind leg) which I thought was a little rude.

Though I have little experience with grass strips I'm surprised at how nicely maintained Deanland is. Great club house etc...