Looks like Olton Reservoir and quite a lot of building around it since you flew over it ...
Not far from the Airport (wsw) and used to be a holding point for small aircraft while the big ones were landing.
Undeniably so, and thanks for the perfect input.
You brought a couple of memories back as I used to fly out of Baginton, much more pleasant a base for jaunts.
My friend was only in Solihull however so was getting his licence at Elmdon, and it made more sense to go from there anyway given the initial aim of overflying the city for some photos, plus it gave him the P1 time for his logbook too.
But just occasionally I would do a roller at Elmdon for the higher-level experience of its zone protocols, although there was always something of a "please don't do that here too much" air about it though the Tower was never anything other than professionally appropriate of course though in later years did seem to routinely be wearing starched underpants/knickers.
Plus, I never really fancied practising engine failure on the climbout/turn there, didn't relish designating and committing to New Street or somewhere for the glide-in, lol, though it would have been fun then leaving the "climbing away" declaration just a tad late and see what tone of voice was used in the acknowledgement ... fun only until they took my license away and burned it I expect.
Anyway ...
Yes quite an amount of growth both inwardly and outwardly, but the years will do that and at least it appears to have involved a little in-keeping discretion. Still a shame about the quiet little cricket pitch however, even though there appears to be a bigger community (?) sports facility to replace it now - I know which one I would have preferred to play on
In passing: if your name/avatar is accurate, and I expect that both are, we may occasionally have been under the same roof.
From late 50s to late 60s, and then scaled back through the early 70s when life, profession and more began claiming more time, you would find me regularly at Silver Blades a good few nights a week either with friends or just pootling around for myself. Friday was always the set-in-stone evening for my personal social group, to be missed at your peril, though every evening was good. Saturdays a close second, but sometimes just to meet friends and and chat and watch/listen as people would go to the cinema first maybe, or some other teenscene place/thing, lol.
Some schoolday afternoons too when I didn't have lessons, and also occasional mornings for the entirely different atmosphere then of course, and especially Sundays for a while with a non-skater new early-girlfriend who wasn't allowed to date when there was school the following day, had a too-early curfew on Saturday, and whose strict Catholic parents had afternoon and evening Church plans for everyone on Sunday. So Sunday morning it was, parent-friendly because it was a "healthy pastime"!
Solihull too of course, though for most of my friends SB was more convenient so was the more-used. Never more than a pleasure skater, I would find it hard to put in to words just how big a part it played, how much fun, how many excellent times and super memories, that all added to my teen-years.
One above all in fact, for half way through one later SB session one of my friends came across, excited at having met a new girl but trying to be dead nonchalant about it, lol, saying to watch out for them circling holding hands (he made a point of stressing that part!) and come and say hello. We have now been married 53 years
When we come in to the City we tend to park in the Pershore St multi-storey for the best quick-escape, and have had plenty of mixed emotions as their neighbour declined, was demolished, and is now city-apartments. Progress is good, sometimes a bitch at the same time.
TQ