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LEC Airfield
LEC Airfield , also known as Bognor Regis Airfield, is an active airfield in Bognor Regis, United Kingdom. It is operated by the Bognor Regis Gliding Club. It was formerly owned by the LEC Refrigeration company, and was located behind their factory. Flying may have begun here from a grass strip in 1943. From 1947 the company used Auster and Miles Gemini aircraft to visit its overseas buyers. In the 1970s the company used Cessna aircraft to visit their factories in Londonderry and Calais. A hard tarmac runway was created in 1984. British racing driver and aerobatic pilot David Purley's Pitts Special was also hangared there, in which Purley died while practicing aerobatics in 1985. LEC Refrigeration was sold to Sime Darby in 1994. In 2016 Sime Darby sold the 45-acre airfield to a local glider pilot and businessman, Julian Hitchcock, through his company BR Aviation Limited. The Bognor Regis Gliding Club was consequently established at the airfield, with operations officially comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bognor Regis
Bognor Regis (), also known as Bognor, is a town and seaside resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, south-west of London, west of Brighton, south-east of Chichester and east of Portsmouth. Other nearby towns include Littlehampton east-north-east and Selsey to the south-west. The nearby villages of Felpham, and Aldwick are now suburbs of Bognor Regis, along with those of North Bersted, North and South Bersted. The population of the Bognor Regis built-up area, including Felpham and Aldwick, was 63,855 at the 2011 census. A seaside resort was developed by Sir Richard Hotham in the late 18th century on what was a sand and gravel, undeveloped coastline. It has been claimed that Hotham and his new resort are portrayed in Jane Austen's unfinished novel ''Sanditon''. The resort grew slowly in the first half of the 19th century but grew rapidly following the coming of the railway in 1864. In 1929 King George V spent three months in the area recuperating, and later that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asphalt Concrete
Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and Tarmacadam, tarmac or bitumen macadam in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface road surface, roads, parking lots, airports, and the core of embankment dams. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the nineteenth century. It consists of Construction aggregate, mineral aggregate Binder (material), bound together with bitumen (a substance also independently known as asphalt, Pitch (resin), pitch, or tar), laid in layers, and compacted. The American English terms ''asphalt'' (or ''asphaltic'') ''concrete'', ''bituminous asphalt concrete'', and ''bituminous mixture'' are typically used only in engineering and construction documents, which define concrete as any composite material composed of mineral aggregate adhered with a binder. The abbreviation, ''AC'', is sometimes used for ''asphalt concrete'' but can also denot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LEC Refrigeration
LEC Refrigeration, known by its full title as Longford Engineering Company Refrigeration, is a British company manufacturing refrigerators and freezers. History It was formed in 1942, by fishmongers Frank Purley and his brother Charles Reginald Purley (born 1910 in Twickenham) as Longford Engineering Company Ltd. Charles had moved to Bognor in 1929. It began making munitions for the war on ''Longford Road'' in Bognor, but began making experimental refrigerators from 1945. It made its first fridge in 1946, the year the ''Shripney Road'' site was obtained, with production beginning in 1947. Charles Purley was the company's chairman until October 1991, shortly before his death in December 1991. The name was changed to LEC Refrigeration on 13 December 1954. Around 60% of its products were for the domestic market, with the rest for commercial use. Before 1956, it was selling more products abroad than in the United Kingdom. It was based at the Shripney Works, a fourteen-acre site at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auster Aircraft
Auster Aircraft Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer from 1938 to 1961.Willis, issue 122, p.55 History The company began in 1938 at the Britannia Works, Thurmaston near Leicester, England, as Taylorcraft Aeroplanes (England) Limited, making light observation aircraft designed by the Taylorcraft, Taylorcraft Aircraft Corporation of America. 1,604 high-wing Taylorcraft Auster monoplanes were built during World War II for the armed forces of the UK and Canada, primarily for the role of air observation post (AOP). During the war the head office and drawing office were at a big old house on the outskirts of Thurmaston called "The Woodlands". The fuselages and wings were manufactured at Syston under the works manager by the name of Sharp. Sheet metalwork was done at the old 'en tout cas' works at Thurmaston. Final assembly, fitting out and testing took place at Rearsby aerodrome. The name changed to Auster (after Notus#Auster, the Roman name for the south wind) on 7 March 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miles Gemini
The Miles M.65 Gemini was a British twin-engined four-seat touring aircraft designed and built by Miles Aircraft at Woodley Aerodrome. It was the last Miles aircraft to be produced in quantity. Development of the Gemini was conducted at a rapid pace following the end of the Second World War, the company being keen to bring its new designs to the postwar civil aviation sector. The speed of development was greatly bolstered by basing the design on the single-engined Miles Messenger. First flying on 26 October 1945, the company's confidence in the aircraft was such that sales demonstrations using the prototype started only days later, while efforts to commence large scale production were started immediately. Within its first year of availability, 130 Geminis had been sold, proving its popularity. It performance was such that it became a successful racing aircraft, with one example alone winning numerous competitions. The company endeavoured to introduce numerous improvements upon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Purley
David Charles Purley, GM (26 January 1945 – 2 July 1985) was a British racing driver born in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, who participated in 11 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting at Monaco in 1973. Purley is best known for his actions at the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix, where he abandoned his own race and attempted to save the life of fellow driver Roger Williamson, whose car was upside down and on fire following a serious accident. Purley was awarded the George Medal for his courage in trying to save Williamson, who suffocated in the blaze. During pre-qualifying for the 1977 British Grand Prix Purley sustained multiple bone fractures after his car's throttle stuck open and he crashed into a wall. His deceleration from 108 mph (173 km/h) to 0 in a distance of 26 inches (66 cm) is one of the highest G-loads survived in a crash (180 G). He scored no championship points during his Formula One career. He died in a plane crash, having retired fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitts Special
The Pitts Special (company designations S-1 and S-2) is a series of light aerobatics, aerobatic biplanes designed by Curtis Pitts. It has accumulated many competition wins since its first flight in 1944. The Pitts biplanes dominated world aerobatic competition in the 1960s and 1970s and, even today, remain potent competition aircraft in the lower categories.Montgomery and Foster 1992, p. 92."Plane and Pilot" 1977, p. 84. Design and development Curtis Pitts began the design of a single-seat aerobatic biplane in 1943–1944.Taylor 1980, p. 899. The design has been refined continuously since the prototype first flew in September 1944; however, the current Pitts S-2 still remains quite close to the original in concept and in design. Several of the aircraft that Curtis Pitts built had a picture of a skunk on them and were called "Stinkers". After she bought it, aerobatic performer Betty Skelton called the second aircraft that Curtis built, "Little Stinker". The protot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sime Darby
Sime Darby Berhad, referred to as Sime, is a Malaysian trading conglomerate. Its core businesses operate and serve in the industrial equipment and automotive sectors. Background The modern Sime Darby Berhad corporation was created in 2007 through a merger of three companies. Sime, Darby and Co. Limited In October 1910, British businessmen William Sime and Henry Darby established Sime, Darby and Co., a fledgling player in the lucrative rubber industry. The company later diversified to cultivating palm oil and cocoa and met with enormous success. At the time of the company's founding, William Middleton Sime was a 37-year-old Scottish adventurer and fortune seeker. He had two failed ventures behind him – one in import-export business and the other in coffee plantations – when he left his job as a mercantile assistant in Singapore. Henry Darby was a wealthy 50-year-old English banker who owned property in Northern Malaya. A senior partner of the audit firm of the Sime Da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Bognor
Royal Air Force Bognor or more simply RAF Bognor (also known as ''Bognor Advanced Landing Ground (A.L.G.)'') is a former Royal Air Force advanced landing ground north of Bognor, West Sussex, England. History Survey work on the site was undertaken in "mid-1942", with construction beginning in early 1943, completed by the Royal Canadian Engineers. Bognor was one of 82 planned Operation Hadrian sites planned with only 26 being built. The original budget for the site was £20,500. The airfield became operational on 1 June 1943 with two intersecting Sommerfield track runways. The site was under the control of RAF Tangmere located four miles further north. The site was originally a training site for aircrews to practise operating with few facilities, however, in Autumn 1943, extra over blister hangars were installed. These provided shelter for most aircraft that were stationed at Bognor, little accommodation was provided for the aircrews who lived in tented camps. The site was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airports In West Sussex
An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface such as a runway for a plane to take off and to land or a helipad, and often includes adjacent utility buildings such as control towers, hangars and terminals, to maintain and monitor aircraft. Larger airports may have airport aprons, taxiway bridges, air traffic control centres, passenger facilities such as restaurants and lounges, and emergency services. In some countries, the US in particular, airports also typically have one or more fixed-base operators, serving general aviation. Airport operations are extremely complex, with a complicated system of aircraft support services, passenger services, and aircraft control services contained within the operation. Thus airports can be major employers, as well as important hubs for tourism and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
