Prague '48

Yes, some of the finest beers and chocs do indeed come from Belgium... When Saint Benedict laid down his 'Rule' for the Benedictine monasteries in the 12th Century he wisely said that the monks should concentrate on manufacturing the most popular money-making local product. In southern Europe this was usually grapes and winemaking; here in the north hops, malt and beer. The rest is history...
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From Brussels at our altitude you can already see the North Sea:

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Large numbers of freight and passenger aircraft ply their trade across the English Channel, especially from small airfields on the south coast of England to the biggest port at the mouth of the Rhine, Rotterdam.

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One I spotted.

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That must be Ostend airport, EBOS.

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You can see the SE corner of England opposite.

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I was just thinking that this stretch of water - the busiest shipping lane in the world for about the last four centuries - needs a lot more ships, but did spot one or two down there.

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Not sure, but this might be Manston, just north of Ramsgate where we crossed the coast of Kent:

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If you've read this so far, you probably know where we are going to land...

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It's Northolt (EGWU), still an airport in NW London - Tornadoes scrambled from there the other day during an Olympics security panic (they had briefly lost contact with an airliner coming in from Belgium and thought those mad racist religious psychotics had got hold of it).

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The charming world we live in today, but in 1948 Northolt was, as mentioned above, loaned by the RAF to British European Airways while Heathrow was being prepared. It's mainly still used a little for things like Royal flights; e.g. Princess Diana's body was flown back from Paris via Northolt.

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It's surprisingly close to Heathrow (which actually covers Hounslow Heath where the highwaymen like Dick Turpin used to hang out), but in a much more built-up area of suburban London.

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The big road to the right will be the A40 (to Oxford and the west) which is called 'Westway' once you get into the outskirts of London.

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The default fs9 EGWU is OK, but rather empty at the moment...

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Full flaps down for such an urban landing and, without much help from the tower, wandering about trying to work out where the passenger terminal should be! (Hoping it'll benefit from a Cold War RAF AI presence in the near future).

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It seemed best to go and park over by the Westway. This would have been extremely convenient for those late '40s passengers, but they could never have extended Northolt into what Heathrow and Gatwick have become! Interesting that it's still an RAF base, however - and that they keep fully-armed warbirds there.

Anyway, that was a little look at the European aviation scene shortly after World War 2.
 
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