Back in the days when I first learnt to fly, I was curious about flying to Compton Abbas Airfield. Located on top of a hill in Dorset, it seemed like an interesting destination. However, I never made the trip there. Then, when my old friend Sean and I made some trips around the south of England in his Europa, we also discussed making a visit there. Not sure whether he ever went but I didn’t. Earlier this year, I got thinking about heading across because it is not much more than an hour from home by car. When I first thought of it, it was early in the year, and I thought summer would be a better time to go with longer days and a likelihood of more traffic.
Come July and it occurs to me that, if I am going to go, I should probably get on with it. So it was that one Saturday morning, we hopped in the car and drove west. It was a very pretty drive across there which made for a good start to the day. When we pulled up, they had some security guys on the gate. Apparently, it was a special day with Spitfire and Tiger Moth rides and there was a £10 charge to park. However, this £10 would then be offset against anything you bought from the café, so it really wasn’t a hardship.
The location is really rather special. Being up on top of the hill gives a lovely view to the lower ground to the north. It also makes for quite a backdrop for any aircraft shots, not that I was likely to be taking any of those! The restaurant is a modern structure, and the food was really good. We ended up sitting on a table outside to order our food which meant I was able to jump up whenever anything of interest moved.
The location does seem to make for some interesting conditions for pilots. Watching the planes on short final, you could see that they were keeping a bit high before dropping down when close in. The briefing notes on the airfield website highlight that, being low on approach can really get difficult. Looks like a place that you need to brief for carefully.
The pleasure flights in the old warbirds were certainly keeping things busy but there was the usual visiting traffic combined with some local flying training. Someone seemed to be having a bit of a time with timing their flaring for touchdown, and I felt a bit bad for them being so on view with all of the visitors when going through their early stages of flight training. I imagine learning there really teaches you some skills!
This was a lovely spot to spend some time on a sunny summer afternoon, and I would be happy to go back again. The food is also great so that would be tempting too. They had a converted horse lorry that served as an outdoor bar which might be worth checking out too next time.
When hanging out at a small airfield, you expect to get a bunch of the regular light aircraft types. Cessnas and Pipers will be expected. Popham has a good selection of microlights and autogyros as well so that will mix things up. However, it brought a couple of planes during one weekend that really caught my eye. These are not rarities, but it is still cool to see something a little different. One was a Fuji FA200. I have caught these a bit in the past, but this was a nice surprise.
Then there was something that I genuinely had no idea about. I got some shots of it and then, when I got home, got on the internet to check out the registration to see what it was. A Bolkow BO.209 Monson was the answer. Bolkow was a manufacturer I was familiar with both from its earlier days and then being part of MBB building helicopters and part of the Panavia consortium building Tornado. I was not aware of the Monson before searching for this plane and found that 100 of them had been built by MBB before production ceased. There have been times when resurrection of production was tried but without significant success. What a cool looking plane and I hope I see it again.
