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Elmdon Airport

The autogiro that crashed Viv was a Cierva C30A Rota G-AHTZ and owned by Rota Towels Ltd of 1 Fleet St, Birmingham 3, who later moved to Hainge Rd, Tividale.
Heres a photo of it taken in happier times.
https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/full_size_0276/1414979-large.jpg.
There was also at the time another Cierva C30A Rota based at Elmdon G-ACUU.
I remember this one at the back of hanger 1 in 1960. It eventually moved to a museum at Staverton airport Gloucester in about 1963, and now resides at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford near Cambridge.
Here is a photo of it as it is now at Duxford in RAF colours.​
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Ten years ago on the forum !!! I mentioned that I had seen a DH Rapide gliding with engines stopped over the Beeches Estate and read in a Birmingham newspaper next day that it had made a forced landing in Perry Barr Park. Another forum member also remembered it but I can't remember the exact year ... is there anything in the newspaper archives about it ?
oldMohawk said:
Hi Big Gee,
The Rapide which force landed in Perry Barr park passed over a field we were playing in, the M6 runs there now. I remember the sound of the air rushing through the wires etc. It might have been the late 40's early 50's. I only found out about the landing in next day's Bham Mail. I'm not sure whether it is possible to access their old archives.
oldmohawk
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Big Gee said:
Hi OM,
Don Everall had a coach-depot in West Brom, if memory serves me correct.
That Rapide landing in Perry Barr Park - I remember that! Any idea of what the year was (just to depress me)?
Big Gee
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mbenne said:
I'm no architect and find it hard to conceive how Elmdon Terminal was based on the design of Templehof Airport?
Nevertheless, it seems that the fate the abandoned Templehof Airport has secured a better future than our own!
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The main feature of Templehof that was incorporated into Elmdon was the large canopy wings which were intended to allow the aircraft to come right up to the building and allow the passengers to board and disembark undercover. Templehof was designed to look like a large eagle with outspread wings in keeping with Nazi iconography.

The plan was that all three Berlin Airports would close and be replaced by Berlin Brandenburg Airport due to open in October 2011. Templehof therefore closed on schedule. That was the bit that the Germans got right. Latest report is that Brandenburg will open in 2021 and I dread to think what percentage it is over budget. If anyone talks to you about German efficiency. just say Brandenburg Airport to them.
 
mikejee said:
Is this the report, from Birmingham Gazette.9.3.1938?

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Thanks Mike, it would not have been that event in 1938, more likely to be 1948 and the aircraft was definitely a DH Rapide. I'm pretty good on aircraft recognition, received a badge for it when I was in the Air Training Corps. The Avro Avian mentioned in the report was a nice single engine bi-plane and Amelia Earhart shipped one to the USA and flew it there.
 
Well some German building works do get done quickly. A German owned supermarket was built in Torquay, a few years ago and it took just six weeks apparently. Workers shipped inn, so they say.
Sadly the only late part, and not the best workmanship, was the UK provided car parking area.
 
Radiorails said:
Well some German building works do get done quickly. A German owned supermarket was built in Torquay, a few years ago and it took just six weeks apparently. Workers shipped inn, so they say.
Sadly the only late part, and not the best workmanship, was the UK provided car parking area.
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These buildings are modular, MacDonalds, Holiday Inn Express, New Supermarkets, they are brought in already constructed and can be erected almost like Meccano or Lego, every piece is numbered and the actual erection time is on a wall planner and kept to, so once the groundworks and the base are done and ready, then it is bring them in and set them up. Also the companies erecting them are never local companies, but come in from 'up the line', because of a relationship between the client and the building company and in some cases they will even bring in sub-contract groundworks and plant operators rather than use the local people. The other saving grace with them is that with the big lorry/loaders that are available now (Hiabs to use the generic), a lorry fitted with a 75tonne unit can also place the parts straight in with a single story building. In your area you may have seen D & Fs big yellow Scania artic unit with a 75t unit on it, that was what it was bought for, originally to swing joists in for houses, but now to move in the prefabricated buildings. One of the budget hotel groups brings in its bathrooms as fully fitted out complete modules that are dropped into place.

Bob
 
Rehearsal for Elmdon opening day in 1939. There were special bus services laid on for spectators. "Tiger Island" sounds intriguing. Viv.

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Very interesting link re the interior shots. One thing I saw was the reference to MATO. I looked at this thinking that it was perhaps about Midland Air Tour Operators the package holiday company. Instead I found out it was an acronym for Military Air Traffic Operations. Not quite the same thing:D
 
VIV- not sure where you are getting all these cuttings etc from but I'm sure they would be of great use to an Aviation Museum :) 4500 signatures but seems to be stalling now... keep sharing people! Unfortunately I think the building will be left to rot now until the dust settles and be gone in about 5 years.
 
hi baedit i see you have been a member for some years now so if you have read some of our threads you will know that unfortunately your prediction may well be realised...we have actively tried to save some of our most precious old buldings but it all fell on deaf ears...ie island house..demolished...the nearby fox and grapes pub (about 300 years old) left to rot...had 2 fires and will be demolished to make way for HS2) the golden lion pub 500 years old left to rot and decay in cannon hill park for many years now despite pleas to restore it...i really do hope that the old terminal building will be saved and put to good use but if it isnt then at least we can say we tried...

lyn
 
Vivienne, I remember 'Tiger Island' during our time in Sheldon (1935 - 1939), it was a large traffic island on the Coventry Rd on the Birmingham boundary where the trolley bus (no. 37 ?) turned round, I vaguely remember lots weeping willows which we used to swing on as children by the Island (I was aged 5 to 9). The airport was under construction about 2 miles farther on, my Dad worked there with Bryant's the builders, hence our reason for moving from Aston to Sheldon. Eric
 
A bit off track, but just below where I believe Tigers Island was, we used to swing on the weeping willows at the Arden Oak terminus :-0
This seems to be an early photo as I remember the tree branches being a lot closer to the road.

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I’ve come across this old airport photo showing the BEA Westland Helicopter G- AJOV a few times in various searches. It was originally a Fleet Air Arm aircraft built in 1953, but never realised it was now preserved at RAF Cosford in its BEA livery- I was only there last week with my grandson and missed seeing it!
 
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Morturn said:
Not sure is this hall is relevant to Elmdon Airport?

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In as much as the fate of Elmdon Airport is likely to be the same as the Hall.......

During the Second World War the house was acquired by the local council for use by the Home Guard, but after 1945 it was largely abandoned and left empty. In this period, unless someone moved in quickly and started repairing the damage and performing maintenance the houses soon started to deteriorate. And so it was with Elmdon Hall; the roof leaked following the theft of the lead, water cascaded down the main hall, eventually rotting the staircase which subsequently collapsed. The house became largely the playground of local children who accelerated the decline until it was a shell; the deterioration became so severe that it became prohibitively expensive to restore in the circumstances of the time, and the house was finally demolished in 1956. Today, a car park marks the site, with what remains of the parkland now a public park in which the fine old trees, lakes and estate buildings merely hint at the grand estate it once was.
 
Morturn said:
Not sure is this hall is relevant to Elmdon Airport?

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Elmdon Hall was about a mile west of the Coventry Rd airport boundary. I remember the lodge which was on the Coventry Rd by the bus stop opposite to the airport in 1960's.
I always understood that Tiger's Island was where the farm stood that is now the entrance to the Golf Club just across from Goodway Rd. Never knew why as there was never an island there, no tigers either. It was just one of the things you accepted!
This fits with the comment in Viv's newspaper cutting saying that access to the airport site was at Tiger's Island(see #492 above) as this was, and still is, the North West corner of the airport site
 
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Seem to remember that someone, sometime, possibly on our great site was trying to trace Tiger Island. I believe the outcome was that it was an housing estate that had a permanent advertising hoarding for Esso petrol that had the Esso Tiger (put one in your tank !).The bus clippies used to announce that the next stop was Tiger Island and the name stuck.
Someone clever like Lyn or Viv will no doubt track it down.
Cheers Tim
 
tim eborn said:
Seem to remember that someone, sometime, possibly on our great site was trying to trace Tiger Island. I believe the outcome was that it was an housing estate that had a permanent advertising hoarding for Esso petrol that had the Esso Tiger (put one in your tank !).The bus clippies used to announce that the next stop was Tiger Island and the name stuck.
Someone clever like Lyn or Viv will no doubt track it down.
Cheers Tim
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As Tiger Island is referred to in Viv's 1939 news clip I think that somewhat predates the Esso Tiger in your tank campaign.
 
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Tigers Island was at the bottom of Arden Oak Road where the Corporation trolleybuses/buses terminated.

All bus traffic beyond that point would have been Midland Red.
 
badpenny said:
Tigers Island was at the bottom of Arden Oak Road where the Corporation trolleybuses/buses terminated.

All bus traffic beyond that point would have been Midland Red.
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Not entirely. The BCT buses from the city centre/air terminal to the airport did go beyond the boundary.
 
badpenny said:
Tigers Island was at the bottom of Arden Oak Road where the Corporation trolleybuses/buses terminated.

All bus traffic beyond that point would have been Midland Red.
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We all know what you meant badpenny.
 
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