Swansea airport used to be known as Fairwood Common Aerodrome. It was developed during WWII and the first flights took off on 15th June 1941. 79 Fighter squadron flew Hawker Hurricanes MK II and 600 Squadron flew Bristol Beaufighters. By the end of June 317 squadron flying Hurricanes were also deployed at Fairwood
Fairwood was then known as 10 Group RAF Fighter Command and were responsible for the defence of South Wales & Bristol, The Western Approaches and St Georges Channel.
Lady Whitten Brown presenting awards at the 1951 aeromodeller National Championships held at Fairwood. Lady Whitten Brown was the wife of the then late Sir Aurthur Whitten Brown, the first aviator to fly across the Atlantic non stop.
Good and bad times must have been encountered whilst flying the Slingsby Grasshopper
You'll notice a few photo's of this lovely Gipsy Leopard
Frank Holland (left) A local avid RC Skipper and Pilot
Gypsy Leopard
Les Webb (right)
An Aubrey Williams Coal Merchant employee
Gypsy Leopard and an unidentified glider
An A4 Dutton and the balsa frame of a Gypsy Moth. This photo was taken outside the Blackhills Barracks, now Fairwood Golf Club
A completed Gypsy Moth which flew from England to Australia in 1934, piloted by Jean Batten
Mignet's demonstrator Flying Flea (bottom right) A Goppenberg Go Wolf (bottom left)
The photo's above look like a Slingsby Grasshopper but the wing struts are solid but should be cable! Anyway they were made for the RAF for flight training purposes. Or perhaps just to see how brave you were.
Another photo of Frank Holland receiving a Cup from Mr James at a Swansea Aeromodellers presentation
And here is a photo of Ted, a farmer from Blackhills who took all these wonderful photo's probably on his homemade camera.