Farnborough Flypast Today

[S7Paul]

I've just received this email:-

DSTL will be marking its imminent departure from Farnborough with an ‘exit event’ on Thursday (17th). As part of the event, there should be various aircraft doing fly-pasts between 13:35 and 13:58, culminating with the Red Arrows.

Disclaimer: I haven't been able to check its authenticity/accuracy, but have no reason to doubt it.

[S3_Graham]

woah.. thats interesting!! have heard nothing of that!! may find a reason to drive out to the remote taxiway (Delta) at half 1.......

Just heard its to the North of the airfield so may not see very much..

Edited by S3_Graham on Thursday 17th September 11:44

[Eric Mc]

I'll keep an eye (and ear) out for this.

End of an era here as it means the end of a continuous military related prescence on the airfield that started at the end of the 19th century.

[oldskool]

S3_Graham said:

Just heard its to the North of the airfield so may not see very much..

Edited by S3_Graham on Thursday 17th September 11:44

Cool... should get a decent view in Southwood then. Thanks for the info

[S3_Graham]

oldskool said:

S3_Graham said:

Just heard its to the North of the airfield so may not see very much..

Edited by S3_Graham on Thursday 17th September 11:44

Cool... should get a decent view in Southwood then. Thanks for the info

One of the Operations guys seemed to think VERY north... so may not see anything but their line up runs,
aparently its only farnborough 'airspace' not actually at display at farnborough.

bah we shall see.

[S3_Graham]

underwhelmed!

i think the old hawker ( i think ) was more interesting!

[Eric Mc]

Didn't hear or see a thing.

Must have been a very quiet flypast. Was the "old Hawker" a Hunter by any chance?

[driverrob]

We did hear one jet, louder than normal, go over about that time but cloud cover was/is so low it wasn't worth going outside to look.

[anonymous-user]

It was only going to be a small flypast anyway from what was posted on other forums. The Hawker I imagine was the Dominie (HS125). I think it was planned for about 5 mins between each aircraft.

[MISS E]

three planes just came over my house in maidenhead looked like they were heading toward the m4 or miltary planes

[RizzoTheRat]

Eric Mc said:

End of an era here as it means the end of a continuous military related prescence on the airfield that started at the end of the 19th century.

To be honest there's not really been a military related presence there since DERA moved all the flying down to Boscombe about 10 years ago has there? TAG bought the freehold a couple of years ago but they've been running the place for years.

[Eric Mc]

RizzoTheRat said:

Eric Mc said:

End of an era here as it means the end of a continuous military related prescence on the airfield that started at the end of the 19th century.

To be honest there's not really been a military related presence there since DERA moved all the flying down to Boscombe about 10 years ago has there? TAG bought the freehold a couple of years ago but they've been running the place for years.

Mo, the DSTL wsas the last MoD related operation still on the site.

Test flying stopped here in 1994. The RAE transformed itself into the DRA, the DERA and finally privatised QinetiQ and the "retained" MoD DSTL. QinteQ are still there - they have a lovely new HQ on the Pysestock side of the airfield and have no plans to move. DSTL are now gone.

The airfield is operated through a 99 year lease by TAG. The freehold is still owned by the MoD as far as I know.

[RizzoTheRat]

You've not been able to get on to the airfield from the QQ/dstl site for years though, certainly before I left DERA in 2001. They'd already pulled out of the factory site (the old Main gate bit) and clustered everyting on the Structures and Pyestock sites. Think the government still ownes a "special share" in QQ but not too sure how that works, it's certainly not a majority shareholding.

Looks like TAG bought the airfield freehold in 2007, but I guess they've still got an agreement with SBAC for the airshow to continue for a few years http://www.tagaviation.com/TagFarnboroughAirport/H...

[Eric Mc]

RizzoTheRat said:

You've not been able to get on to the airfield from the QQ/dstl site for years though, certainly before I left DERA in 2001. They'd already pulled out of the factory site (the old Main gate bit) and clustered everyting on the Structures and Pyestock sites. Think the government still ownes a "special share" in QQ but not too sure how that works, it's certainly not a majority shareholding.

Looks like TAG bought the airfield freehold in 2007, but I guess they've still got an agreement with SBAC for the airshow to continue for a few years http://www.tagaviation.com/TagFarnboroughAirport/H...

Things have probably moved on. The one thing I am pretty certain of is that the taxpayer probably got completely ripped off in all the complicated dealings that have gone on over the years.
I'm not exactly sure exactly where DSTL were located on the site.