Carr Farm
CARR FARM: Private airstrip
Note: All six of these pictures were obtained from Google Earth ©
Operated by: Mr C J Baker?
Location: Near and S of Thorney, near and N of Wigsley. Roughly 7nm W to WNW of Lincoln city centre. In that odd little protrusion of NOTTINGHAMSHIRE which intrudes into LINCOLNSHIRE
Period of operation: 1980s to –
Runway: 07/25 270 grass
Later: 09/27 405 grass (Possibly extended to 500 metres?)
NOTES: An article in an issue of Light Aviation magazine, was about the restoration of the sole remaining Auster B.8 Agricola, a crop-sprayer type (G-CBOA) which had been imported from New Zealand. This aircraft was a radical departure from previous Auster types, designed by the now renowned Chief Designer at Auster, R E ‘Dickie’ Bird. He did a very good job of it too, spending months in New Zealand to discover what was needed.
Unfortunately, at around the same time, the American Fletcher Defender, designed by John Thorpe, was much bigger and better. Successive versions of the Fletcher design, produced by PAC (Pacific Aircraft Company) still rule the roost in New Zealand – as I discovered on a visit a few years ago. Put simply, a bigger aircraft, still capable of very short-field operation, was what the ‘Kiwi’ operaters wanted.
SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE
It surely must be applauded that, due to to relationship developed between the LAA and the CAA in recent years, an agreement was reached to allow G-CBOA to be administered by the LAA. After all, this unique aircraft would never ever again operate at MTOW for commercial crop-spraying operations.
SOMETHING NOT TO CELEBRATE
Whilst looking into this site for my listing in early 2017 I found some disturbing advice on a web-site dedicated to flying sites in NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. It appears that people have been turning up without making an appointment, which is simply bad manners. However, worse still it appears that several people have made an appointment, then failed to turn up without informing anybody. This is utterly disgraceful behaviour, totally disrespectful and it makes me wonder what kind of people these actually are. In my book I'd list them under 'Scum'.
And, there is another important aspect. It does not matter of course if any site is listed in this 'Guide' - there are lots of other ways to discover the location, including 'the grapevine'. However, as this 'Guide' is essentially a celebration of our incredibly long and rich aviation heritage, it pains me to think that some of these 'low-life' characters may be using this 'Guide' as a reference.
MOVING ABOUT
It may not be generally known that magnetic north moves - it is not a fixed position. As a result all aeronautical charts have to be regularly amended to take this shift into account. Also, although runways only have two numbers marked to show the orientation, this can be a tad misleading in that, as in this example, a runway heading can easily change over many years from 07/25 to 09/27.
Mike Wilson
This comment was written on: 2018-01-29 20:40:25Hello, David Baker now runs the farm and the business Auster Spares Regards
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