RAF Rescue Sea King

[EngineRoom 205]

Messing about today with the Virtavia Sea King in FSX. Heading out from Manston following the coast of Thanet, west towards Herne Bay, then south to Canterbury, a quick water landing at Fordwich Lakes, then back to Manston again.

 

There used to be an RAF Rescue base at Manston and I used to see the yellow Sea Kings all the time growing up. The rescue base was shut down in the late 90's after defence cutbacks. More recently the airport was purchased last year by a certain, ahem... "entrepreneur" (for the princely sum of £1) who promised to keep it open as an airport, then promptly closed in May and plans to develop it into a "garden city". This was after our entrepreneur rejected an offer to buy the airport for the full asking price of well over £20m from another company that wanted to keep operating Manston as an airport. There's a great deal of local opposition to the closure and proposed housing development and suggestions of shady deals gone on between the various parties involved and the local government.

 

#savemanstonairport