 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||
Southend Airport is a small airport in south east England, in the county of Essex. Sometimes known as London Southend Airport because of its closeness to London, the airport is actually closer to Rochford than it is to Southend.
A fast rail service runs from Rochford to London (Liverpool Street) and buses and taxis are readily available.
The airport has planning consent to build a new terminal and railway station on the eastern boundary of the airport.
The only regular air service is a scheduled flight to Jersey on summer Saturdays. Aircraft can be chartered from based airlines Flightline and Fly Now Air Charter.
The airport is primarily used for maintenance and parking of airliners, business aircraft, recreational flying, pilot training in both light aircraft and helicopters, and the maintenance and modification of airliners. Some participants at the seafront airshow are based temporarily at the airport for the duration of the displays.
Maintenance work at Southend Airport ranges from re-painting through the renewal of seating, upgrades to avionics and installation of hush-kits on engines, to the conversion of passenger aircraft into cargo carriers.
Management would like to revive its status as a passenger airport but some local people have objections. In 2002 a fierce debate centered on the idea of relocating an ancient protected church further from the end of the main runway. This would enable passenger aircraft, of a size already regularly seen at the airport, to offer passenger flights to points within Europe. Aircraft arriving empty for maintenance are not required to have the same CAA/ICAO standards as passenger carrying flights, so at present these can operate without the required CAA/ICAO requirements.
ATC (Lasham) are the major engineering company at the airport, having taken over Heavylift Engineering company. Other companies include: Air Livery, Inflite Engineering, Flightline Aircraft Engineering, JRB Aviation, Pathfinder Engineering, Avionicare, IAVNA and BAC Engineering.
Sometimes adverse weather or other incidents cause aircraft to divert in quantity from either Stansted or London City Airport. The airport is also popular with film-makers who use the terminal to film aviation-related series, which can at present be accommodated because the terminal is not greatly used. Generally it functions as a cafe/lounge for spectators and private pilots, there is an information terminal, a photo booth and a cash machine. Some busy pubs and retail warehouses front the road between the air terminal and the traditional town centre. A preserved Avro Vulcan may be seen from that road. There is no longer a museum at this airport which once reverberated to flying car ferries such as the piston-engined Bristol Freighter.
The airfield was originally established by the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. In World War II it became an important fighter base for the RAF. Many of the 50 pillboxes, that were design to protect the airport from paratroop landings, still survive, as does the underground defence control room. A further 20 or so pillboxes also remain in the surrounding countryside.
Of related interest, Canewdon, a couple of miles to the north east of the airport, was the location of one of the World War II Chain Home radar stations. One of the 360 foot high transmitter towers can now be found near Great Baddow (2003).
|
||||
| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
||
