[/Max Bygraves] I'm gonna tell you a story.......
A dozen or so years ago a marked increase in (Apache) traffic resulted in many tree-top fly-overs of Knettishall and numerous near misses as we were under the direct path from Wattisham to STANTA (D208).
I was moved to whinge to the Ops manager of RAF Wattisham. He was terribly nice about it but said Knettishall was not on their LFA charts as it was not on Enroute 5.5., which the Apache pilots used for planning
Knettishall has been on the CAA half mil as active for at least 50 years, so I looked in 5.5 and sure enough it wasn't.
So I set about getting Knettishall (which has also been used by the Bury Model Flying club for 40+ years) on ENR 5.5.
I drew a complete blank:(Computer says no) because we were not a microlite site, an aviation training site, a paragliding site, a parachuting site, in fact every other type of recreation imaginable so we could not go in Enr5.5.
Through the back door I got us on the military LFA Charts as an active strip but despite advice from a Forumite I got nowhere with ANR5.5
We did go through a glorious brief period when following a note on the wall in Watt Briefing Room, individual Apache pilots rang us re activity on days when they were going to be close by. But that was short lived
I have moved on now and the strip (still GA active) is now leased by the Bury Model Flying Club.:
It was their saviour as they had been summarily turfed off their only other flying sites (Rougham and Honington following the arrival of RAF gliding school
Aah! I hear you say: its a model flying site and is eligible to be in Enr5.5 on this basis.
Sadly the guy in charge of the modellers could not be ars ed to get it entered in 5.5, nor sadly could he be ar sed to follow through and finalise my application 3 + years in process for a C o A to allow flights to Europe from the strip.
So its still not in ENR 5.5 in its new form, and resident pilots now have to stop off on Customs accredited airfield on their way to Le Touquet and beyond, thereby doubling the time and cost.A totally retrograde step.
A totally sad and frustrating end to the Fersfield Flying Group's stewardship of Knettishall from 1970 to March 2023. [/Max Bygraves]
Taken from the wing of our arrer (RIP) from in front of our hangar a few minutes after landing: