Words Dave Calderwood
13 April 2022
At first glance, the news that Thatcham Research has successfully completed its takeover of Gamston Aviation which owns and operates Retford-Gamston Airport, doesn’t sound that good for General Aviation. However, Thatcham’s team of engineers are enjoying the atmosphere at the airport and are committed to making the plan for dual operations – flying and car testing – work side-by-side.
Richard Billyeald, Chief Technical Officer at Thatcham Research, told FLYER, “We never went into this expecting to be running an aviation operation. But actually, we’ve seen great benefits already of what that brings us.
“The biggest challenge we have at our current side, at Upper Heyford, is actually the remoteness of that site. [The former USAF ] site is enormous and you got to drive 10 minutes, once you’ve come in the gate, to even get to where we base ourselves. And it’s the middle of nowhere – they use it for filming Zombie Apocalypse.
“When you’ve got a small team of 12-15 people working there, it’s an unpleasant environment. We’ve got young engineers, and we train them up to deliver the things we need to deliver. That environment could potentially drive people away if we’re not careful.
“So one of the major benefits that we have seen from coming to Gamston, as you come in through the gate, there are people, there’s a buzz, there’s a great feel to the site, whether that’s aviation, the cafe or the other businesses based there, there is a kind of humanity, there’s a community. And that’s a massive plus for us and our teams. And it’s something that everybody who’s come up from Thatcham has recognised.
“There’s also the cold hard reality of things that any planning permission requires us to maintain dual operations. So we’re going to do it.
“We make revenue from having commercial users on site, tenants on site, and private flyers. Whilst we’re not about turning enormous profit – we’re a nonprofit organisation – it helps the sustainability of the site, to have that income to help support it.
“And also, actually, especially the teams that are coming up, we’re all generally technical engineers. We’re all really keen on what’s going on. I’m looking to restart flight training that I last did 30 years ago, when I did an RAF scholarship when I was in my teens. I’m looking to restart just from having that kind of interaction and seeing the things going on.
“So actually, whilst it was never something we were looking for, we do see the huge benefits. It’s a big plus.”
Thatcham Research will be running car safety tests at Gamston but pledge to work with aviation. Photo: Thatcham Research
While it’s great to hear that joining the active aviation community at Gamston has enthused Thatcham’s team, how’s it going to work?
Richard confirmed that day-to-day management of airport operations will continue to be run by Evangalene (‘Evie’) Mcleod, who is Airport Manager and CAA Accountable Manager.
“Evie reports to me because I look after our engineering operations, including track testing,” said Richard. “She has day to day responsibility for running the airport.
“We’ve got two controlled environments, we’ve got aviation, which is a controlled environment, we’ve got track testing, which is a controlled environment. So whilst we might have days of track testing, it can be very on and off. Partly, that’s the nature of the beast, you do runs, you gather data, you review data, you run again.
“And so there’s there’s naturally gaps that will occasionally happen. The facilities won’t be blocked out. It’s also quite localised on the site. We’ve got an apron area in front of the hangars and a lot of our testing will take place on this. And there’s the perimeter track that we’re resurfacing at the north end of the of the site, which will also will be licenced to provide taxying opportunities.
“We will test on the main runway but that’s a different sort of testing and reasonably low percentage of usage at the moment.
“Evie and our Operations Manager in charge of track testing will be in constant communication. There’ll be signals, there’ll be marked areas, there’ll be published schedules. So we’ll have that kind of structure. But also flexibility in between. That might mean it’s going to have an impact. If we do need to run some tests on the main runway, then that’s going to get in the way of aviation.
“But as I said, that’s not necessarily going to be all the time and if for example, we stopped because we’ve had an equipment failure and we’re going to be two hours fixing that, we’re not going to keep everything blocked out for that time.”
So will the airport’s hours of operation be as as normal?
“For now,” confirmed Richard. “That doesn’t mean we won’t change it. Going forward, it might make sense to reset that slightly for everybody’s benefit. But we want to get our dual operations underway first and work out the wrinkles. Where can we tweak things to improve it from our side and from the aviation side. There are lots of those sort of decisions to be made.”
One of the worries at the beginning when it was first announced that Thatcham had an interest in Gamston was that some of the aircraft based in the hangars will be displaced, but Richard confirms that’s not the case.
“No, we haven’t displaced anybody and we’re not planning to in the near term future. We are planning to base ourselves in terms of the workshop and an office facilities in Hangar 11. The rest of the hangar range remains available. We will have to move a few people around to make sure it works but there’s room enough for everybody.”
Will private and professional pilots be able to PPR and come and land?
“Yes, they will,” said Richard. “The track operations are inevitably going to have an impact, but we think that’s quite manageable, and will be quite flexible.
“One of the biggest differences is that we’re owned by insurance companies, they fund us to do the work that we’re doing. And we reflect their kind of risk appetite which is at the very low risk level. We have a lot of processes, procedures, committees, structure and framework to give our insurers comfort and confidence in what we’re doing, and that will be reflected in how we run the site.
“But I think also the way we approach it will reflect our kind of small business mindset, which is flexibility, engagement, ‘just’ conversation and understanding, and fair and reasonable, I think.”
When will people start to see the changes?
“We’re planning to do all of this [building work] in the summer this year. We can’t be any more accurate than that, because we’re in the middle of the tender process, talking to contractors and getting bids in. Until we know, we can’t define a schedule, but the plan is through this summer to get that work done, recognising the impact and trying to mitigate it as much as we can.
“Our plan is to start operations around October this year, and we’ll be looking at a transition period but that’s the overall roadmap.”
Are you a pilot or business owner at Gamston Airport affected by the changes? Let FLYER know. Email: [email protected]
1 comment
I’ve just started learning to fly at this airport, so I certainly hope that Thatcham Research makes a success of the dual operations. I really like the airport, the on-site café with viewing area, and of course Gamston Flying School.
Here’s hoping for a good outcome.