VFR Flight - Where's Didcot Power Station ?

[Guest tomahawk_pa38]

Didcot has a weather system all of it's own as well. I always give the cooling towers a wide berth when airborne - suspect it could be a bit bumpy ! I was travelling on the train a few months ago on a beautiful clear sunny day, little boy of 4 ish travelling with his mum - the conversation went like this:-Boy: What's that there mum (Didcot Power Station which is right next to the railway) ?Mum: I think it's a factory of some sort.Boy: Is it a cloud factory !!A very accurate observation in my opinion.PS Why the aterisks in the name - has it got a rude nickname then ?

[Guest tomahawk_pa38]

Back again,Can't find Didcot from those sites. I downloaded Satanic Mills and UK ANO but the latter says that it doesn't include Didcot because that's available from somewhere else (reated by Greg Jones). Done a few searches but nothings come up. Any ideas please ?ta

[Guest Adverse Yawn]

'Working' from home today :DI just found it here: http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kdl/main/52/d...ps.zip?evzh104fHowever, I am spooked. To my knowledge I did not dowload Didcot seperately. I am sure all I did was do a mass grab of those UK scenery downloads and then subsequently noticed it in a virtual flight one day???

[Guest tomahawk_pa38]

I'm at work as well (Swindon town centre) but not at home on this rather nice flying day. I'll download the mass grab stuff as well and have a look over the weekend. I tried searching Flightsim.com but your link doesn't work and the seacrh couldn't find 'didcotps.zip' either.Are you fairly 'local' then ?

[Guest Adverse Yawn]

Try this as an alternative: Just type "Didcot" into the Avsim or FlightSim.com library search. FWIW, Avsim seems to have more.I live near Farnborough. Which has its compensations once every two years. My house seems to be the point where the warbirds hold waiting for their display slot :)

[Guest tomahawk_pa38]

I di try the obvious searches before but will have another go tomorrow thanks.Farnborough eh ? A proper aviation town - like Gloucester from where I originate !! but I'm forgetting of course that Swindon once was - home to Vickers but not sure what they built here

[Guest IanP]

Hi Dave...I used to travel once a week between Reading and Wolverhampton on the train (and back), so I saw quite a lot of Didcot either from the Parkway station or bypass loop that appeared to get used randomly. I don't remember seeing the same effect that Ironbridge gave, but the position of Ironbridge at the end of the gorge apparently provides some interesting air movements anyway. Like you and Didcot, it was somewhere I always gave a wide berth. You also used to get a lot of idiots playing chicken with The Wrekin (a large and very obvious lump of rock with a BBC TV antenna on top) which is nearby.>PS Why the aterisks in the name - has it got a rude nickname>then ?Very much so. Although apparently from the comment above, it might have changed.Put very simply, the guy who owned it didn't like GA. He owned one of the busiest GA airfields in the country and was only interested in either a) selling it off for housing or :( making it a fully licensed, full sized, commercial airport to challenge Birmingham International. He didn't get either, and the fact seemed to annoy him no end, which he took out on the people who operated or landed there. Fees were increased several times without warning or explanation, the FISOs used to act like a tower (it was actually a tower for a short period of time, but this was before then) and if you complained, you were treated even more like scum and basically told to never come back.Both the flying club I learned with and the company that took over when it went were put out of business by price increases. People stopped going there because it was cheaper to land and pay parking/handling charges at Birmingham or Coventry! The longest runway was regularly closed at weekends for car boot sales.Even now, on perfect flying days, you are unlikely to see more than one or two aircraft in the circuit. Go out to Shobdon or Sleap and there are aircraft going everywhere!I'd like to hope it has changed, but unfortunately as I'm unlikely ever to get my medical revalidated, I won't be flying there again anyway. :-(At least I can still do it in FS! :-hahCheers,Ian P.

[Guest Adverse Yawn]

Sounds like the grief a number of people and organisations went through at Sywell a year or two ago.