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Elmdon Airport Birmingham International Airport

DavidGrain said:
I had not realised that the Air Terminal in Easy at the side of the Civic Centre (now called Baskerville House) was designated as a temporary building. As a child of that era, to me 'pre-fab' buildings were part of normal life.
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Agree, did not consider them anything but. In retrospect they were a great idea for the time & place. I just wonder in today’s world how long it would to get something like that. In the US we would need at least three committees!
 
A couple of poor-quality half-tone press photos from Elmdon airport's opening on a rainy 8th July 1939.

ensignbham.jpg
One of the huge, new four-engined Armstrong Whitworth Ensign airliners (G-ADSW "Eddystone" of Imperial Airways) put in an appearance.

A W Ensign

www.dingeraviation.net www.dingeraviation.net

skuadisplay1.jpg
Despite the rain, a unit of Navy Blackburn Skuas put on a display of dive-bombing, followed by a low-level attack on a dummy submarine conning tower set up on the airfield. Perhaps a little too low, because the same tactic led to the loss of a couple of Skuas only two months later when they were brought down by the blast of their own bombs when attacking a German Submarine in the Atlantic.

The Sinking of the Fanad Head in WW2

www.dingeraviation.net www.dingeraviation.net
 
Vivienne14 said:
Outside the airport terminal building c1970s.
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National Travel (Midlands) was a short-lived entity made up of the former coach fleets of Don Everall Ltd, of Wolverhampton, and Worthington's of Hurst Street, Birmingham. The operations were based at the former Wolverhampton Corporation bus depot at Bilston and at Hurst Street, Birmingham. When it closed operations, vehicles and some staff were split between National Travel West in Manchester and Midland Red Coaches Ltd at Digbeth. The Bedford shown went north.
 
What a great Forum!

I'm on a decades-long mission to track down a mid-1950s, Birmingham newspaper article - that my 16-year old Dad appeared in - having organised a flight with his school chums to fly from Elmdon to Heathrow and back. He flew his first-ever scheduled flight in a Vickers Viscount and he remembers the Queen’s Building at Heathrow (now the main terminal building of Terminal 2) – which wasn’t opened till December 1955.
If this rings a bell or if anyone can add to the story or have the newspaper article(!!) that would be amazing. Thank you!
 
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