This was a new airfield for me. Perranporth airfield is located on the North coast of Cornwall, the airfield is West of Perranporth town along the B3285 near to the village of Trevellas.
The airfield was built in 1941 during World War 2 and was home to several Spitfire squadrons. You can learn more about the history of Perranporth airfield via the link below
History of RAF PerranporthUpon arrival at Perranporth I asked at the Control Tower for permission to walk over to the nearby new hanger - this was granted and they requested I wear a High Viz jacket. Parked by the tower itself were half a dozen small Cessna 150/172 types plus G-AZRZ Cessna U206 which was busy operating parachute jumps.
Reims Cessna F 172N G-WACL was built in 1979 and is resident at Perranporth in this attractive colour scheme. After 30 years this aircraft has flown in excess of 8550 flight hours. This aircraft is construction number c/n 1912 and was originally delivered new to the UK from the Reims factory as G-BHGG in November 1979. Initially based at Denham it became G-WACL in 1989 and spent many years operating from Booker / High Wycombe before being sold onto Exeter and then Perranporth.
You can see a good photo of G-WACL wearing its previous sky blue colour scheme applied when it operated with Wycombe Air Centre at Booker- ie WAC"L" below
Previous Colour Scheme of G-WACLThe new hanger is sub divided with three doorways. A chat with a resident pilot resulted in permission to enter the hanger. There were numerous interesting aircraft types to be seen although with just one external door open the hanger was rather dark for photos.
The hanger included the very sleek moulded composite G-JBAS Lancair 200 - this aircraft was kit built and completed in 2003. Powered by a Continental 0-200 engine this design came to market in 1985.
Update 29.12.09 - I have received an email from the Slater family which built this aircraft with more details of this aircrafts history - The aircraft was purchased as a kit from Lancair in 1988-1989, the aircraft is belived to be Lancair kit number 069. The PFA in the UK assigned it aircraft project number
PFA 191-11465 - Mr Slater says -
"" ( Lancair ) they totally re-jigged the tooling soon after this one, you can see a difference in the mass balance weight shape on the later ones. ""
Thanks to Mr Slater for this feedback.
Cessna T303 N289CW can be seen behind the Lancair.
Official Lancair Website
Wearing a Cornish flag on the tail is Bolkow Bo 209-160FV Monsun G-EFJD c/n 126. This aircraft was first registered in the UK recently in October 2008. It was built in Germany back in 1971 and was imported from Germany as D-EFJD - a nice simple paint change, from "D" to "G".
MBB built 102 production examples of the Monsun before MBB ceased the production of fixed wing aircraft in 1972 to concentrate on their successful helicopter designs ( MBB Bo 105 etc ). There are currently 11 examples of this type shown as registered on the UK "G-...." register.
Other interesting types in the modern hanger included G-CCJL Super Marine Spitfire Mk 26 as "PV303" coded "ON-B", L-4B Cub G-BHVV as "31430" in an olive USAAC colour scheme plus another similar Cub G-AKIB as "480015" coded "M-44".
Modern light aircraft included Skyranger G-CDWB, CTSW G-LCKY and brand new RV-8 G-GUNZ which I was told was awaiting first flight.
The hanger also included American registered Liberty XL-2 N576XL, Cessna T303 Crusdaer N289CW, Beech 76 N741D and red & white Hughes 269 N994K.
G-OTUN EV-97 Eurostar built in 2002
G-BKRH Max Brugger Colibri MB2 - this homebuilt aircraft was completed in 1988 and has visited many of the PFA fly in rallyes over the past 20 years - it was previously based at Cranfield.
