Beagle Club celebrate Airport Birthday

 

nicholas myers
Nicholas Myers cuts the cake

The Beagle Pup and Bulldog Club helped to celebrate the Airport Centenary by organising a Beagle Fly-In for the week-end of 7th and 8th August. In addition, ex Beagle Aircraft employees were invited to join the “Birthday Party” held on Sunday 8th August. Nicholas Myers, the last MD of Beagle Aircraft Ltd, cut the cake and from the large number of aircraft that arrived for the occasion seven aircraft consisting of Bulldogs and Pups carried out a flypast. Later in the afternoon one of the Bulldogs took Nicholas on a trip to Beachy Head and back which he thoroughly enjoyed.

nicholas myer
Nicholas Myers enjoys a flight in a Bulldog

Beagle aircraft at Shoreham
Beagle Aircraft on Apron at Shoreham

 

Beagle Celebrations Continue

Words and picture by Bob Ruffle

beagle flag at shoreham

The Beagle Aircraft Limited corporate flag flies again at Shoreham Airport over thirty years on from its previous appearance here. The weekend of 7th & 8th August 2010 saw a fly-in of Beagle aircraft types, arranged by the Beagle Pup & Bulldog Club as part of the airport Centenary Celebrations.
This flag is one of three Beagle flags which was kept in the flag locker when I arrived at Shoreham in March 1980. Others were national flags representing all the nations who had taken delivery of Pups at Shoreham. This was already ten years on from the Beagle Aircraft decline, but traces of the company remained well into the early ‘90s. Still to be seen are the letters TD on the main hangar, all that remains of the BEAGLE AIRCRAFT LTD title. (One wonders how it came to survive? Was it five o’clock on a Friday, at which point the poor guy rubbing the title out got his P45!)
This flag was passed on to me by the former Beagle test pilot and Airport Manager Ben Gunn on his retirement and formed part of my aviation flag collection. On thinning out the collection a couple of years ago it was acquired by Diane Pollard on behalf of the Beagle Pup & Bulldog Club.
Of the other two, one is held at the Brooklands Museum and I believe the other is in the West Sussex County Archive where it forms part of the late Richard Almond aviation collection.