Hatch End
HATCH END: Private airfield
Note: The map provided is just a rough guide to the location used.
Operated by: The Hatch End Ultra Light Aeroplane Constructors’ Club, or, perhaps rather more correctly, Mr Arthur Ord-Hume
Location: Very near to and probably N of (?) Evelyn Drive which is just N of the A404 Uxbridge Road NW of Pinner Green
Period of operation: 1950s only?
Runways: NW/SE grass (another less used option was WSW/ENE)
NOTES: A marginal site at best and finding it “out of wind” on one occasion Arthur Ord-Hume elected to land the Tiger Moth he was flying onto the nearby Pinner Golf Course No.1 fairway. Creating, according to the Club Secretary, the longest divot ever! I would recommend to anybody to read his book On Home-Made Wings.
Apart from describing the early years of the post-WW2 ULAA (Ultra-Light Aircraft Association) movement it is also a very comprehensive description about life in pre and post WW2 London suburbia.
Very pertinent to this Guide many examples are given describing just how much aviation activity once impinged quite significantly on this supposedly quiet backwater. Also providing yet more proof, if any more proof is needed, to support my contention that nigh on every second field in England - at least, has an aviation related story to tell.
SORTING IT OUT
It is told that the principal runway option was from the west for landing, and to the west for take-off. In fact, according to maps prepared the best runway was actually orientated NW/SE. In other words a marginal airfield in all respects. The first aircraft to arrive here was the Auster Autocrat G-AGXT flown by Arthur Ord-Hume.
He had previously attempted landing the Taylorcraft G-AIXB but decided that it was far too chancy. Use of the field did depend on whether or not the farmer had cows grazing in it. A friend visited in a Tipsy B.2 but soon afterwards declared his next visit would be by train!
An Aeronca C.3 also visited but it’s propensity to float in ground effect made for some anxious moments.
HOW IS YOUR AVIATION KNOWLEDGE?
No doubt you will have heard of many British aircraft constructor concerns like Bristol, Hawker and Vickers but are you really air-minded enough to know about The Hatch End Ultra Light Aeroplane Constructors’ Club? If the answer is negative buy a copy of On Home- Made Wings and find out, as I did, just how and why this organisation was formed. I suspect the answers will keep you smiling for weeks! Arthur himself reckons that HATCH END “aerodrome” (as it was called within his inner circle of friends), probably clocked up no more than two dozen take-offs and landings during it’s period of operation and each and every one was, “exhilarating, nerve-wracking and risky”.
THE END OF HATCH END
In the end the expansion of the HEATHROW Control Zone put paid to HATCH END as none- radio equipped aircraft were prohibited from entering it. In the early days after HEATHROW first opened, non-radio aircraft were permitted to cross overhead at 4000ft or above.
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