Fishburn, County Durham - 3.7.11

This was my first visit to the airfield at Fishburn, County Durham, also known as Morgansfield. The airfield was opened in 1985 by Tony Blair MP.

The airfield is located just to the west of Fishburn village - the club house offers tea and refreshments - a polite request to walk along the hangers was granted - thank you. The airfield has 9 small hangers with a further 17 modern "T" shaped individual hangers behind - I was told that approx 40 aircraft are resident.

G-RAYH - Zenair CH 701UL, this rugged STOL type aircraft was built in 2005 and is powered by a Jabiru engine.

G-CBJH - Aeroprakt A22 Foxbat - this kit built aircraft comes from the Aeroprakt factory in the Ukraine. Currently there are 35 Foxbat aircraft registered in the UK.

G-ATUI - Bolkow Bo 208C Junior c/n 611 was built 45 years ago in 1966 and has now flown over 6,500 flight hours.  Over 180 Junior aircraft were delivered before production ceased in 1971.

D-EKNA - Mooney M20F Executive c/n 670297 - this German registered Mooney was built in 1967 and looks in excellent condition and is a resident at Fishburn.

G-BSUX - Carlson Sparrow II - only two examples of this aircraft are currently registered in the UK and this is thought to be the only airworthy example at the moment. Built in 1991 the aircraft was originally powered by a Rotax 532 engine but now has a BMW R100 engine.
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G-AYYX - Socata MS 880B Rallye Club - this aircraft was built in 1971 and has been put out to grass - now engineless it appears withdrawn from use among the long grass


Steve

Elblag - Poland 9.8.08

This was my first visit to Elblag airfield - Elblag is situated in the North East of Poland not far from the Baltic coast.

I arrived at 08.00 and was very lucky to find one person just opening up the main hanger - no problem with spotting once I'd introduced myself.



Outside the the hanger in excellent condition was An-2 SP-KBA - this aircraft is c/n 1G185-02 and was built in 1979.

The hanger itself contained 10 gliders and 13 aircraft including,



Two seat trainer SP-3523 a SZD 50-3 Puchacz built in 1989 and suspended from the ceiling to save hangar floor space.




SP-YBU is a Zenair CH 601 Zodiac first registered in 2004 - the "SP-Y....." registration block is used for "Special" aircraft mainly home & kit built aircraft and older aircraft without full type certificates.



SP-YUO is an example of the Polish built ultralight EOL-2 designed by Adam Kurbiel and built at Bielsko-Biala. This example has c/n EK-04-05 and was built in 1995 - it first flew as SP-PUO in 1995 ( the "SP-P...." series being used for prototypes / modified test aircraft etc ) before becoming SP-FUO in 1996. It was then re-registered to the newly introduce "SP-Y..........Special" category in 2003. Following the death of Mr Kurbiel in 2000 the design was accquired by a new company called 3xTrim in Poland and also to Remos in Germany.



Parked among the tall grass behind the hanger was An-2 SP-FDZ, the registration appears under the wing. This aircraft was previously used for "Loty Widokowe - Scene Flights" and is c/n 1G74-43, built back in 1967 and delivered to the Polish Air Force as "7443" - it became SP-FDZ in 1999.

Two other An-2 were on the far side of the airfield, SP-FDW painted yellow and SP-FMH painted red/white.

Two foreign registered aircraft were in the hangar here - D-EEUM TB-10 Tobago and F-JKDX Kappa KP-2U Sova.