The demise of MAS coach trips.

[wadoki]

Remember the days when the airshow season ran from May(Biggin Hill) to September(BoB)?
There would be an event every weekend and the Merseyside Aviation Society ran a 50 seater to lots of them!
Imagine that,40-odd enthusiasts from our area alone on 6/7 trips per year...............ok ok they weren`t all odd!!
The `76 Farnborough trip required TWO coaches...........and a couple more from TAS in Manchester.
However,by`78 the same show only attracted enough punters to fill a 10 seater self-hire minibus...............remember Brian?(Viscount was the driver).
Coach trips never recovered.
So what happened in the late `70s to turn a generation away from the hobby?
The older spotters bought an old-banger of a car(well mine was!) and did the shows as a private venture...........but what happened to the kids?
Farnborough had a bad reputation for terrible weather at the time and there was a recession caused by the `oil-shock`Arab embargo following the Yom Kippur war.
Was that it?
Don`t forget this was long before youngsters lived in a virtual world of computers.If you wanted to see it,you had to get out there.


Spotting and sociology

[viscount]

Interestng points.

I would put the big decline of coach trips more early-mid 'Eighties, rather than late 'Seventies. My first MSAE Coach was Biggin Air Fair 1966. We even at one stage, ran once-a-year two-day trips, with displays on the Saturday and Sunday, then there was the marathon sit-down all the way to B of B at Leuchars, then home the next day from Aberdeen.

Interestingly, I never drove a mini-bus to an SBAC Farnborough Show! Indeed the only MAS hired mini-bus trip I can recall driving (maybe wrong though) was down to Southampton/Stokes Bay for the USS John F Kennedy visit. Many memories of that drive, sweeping into the Blue Lias Pub Car Park at 3am to cop a Vampire by headlights, trying to sleep in spine-chilling cold in the Oxford services for 2 hours awaiting dawn - oh, and logging an Aztec which I only saw in the wing-mirror as it went past the other way on the motorway. I recall too trying to get off the tug moving up and down on the waves onto a floating platform, which seemed to constantly moving in a different direction, then from that onto the rock-steady island of USS JFK.... ah memories!

As for an air show each weekend, well I would suspect that at most the MSAE/MAS would run 8 trips a year, including spring/autumn Heathrow trips. There are possibly far more displays now, April to October than in the 70s and 80s - what is so very different now is that few displays today are on military airfields - indeed today any on airfield air show is unusual and seems that nearly all those are in July (Fairford, Waddington, Duxford, Yeovilton, and now even Farnborough too).

[wadoki]

MAS minibus to Duxford 18th June 1978 via
Waddington,Sculthorpe,Marham,Lakenheath and Mildenhall!!.....................looking for F-105s
...........and I`m giving the credit for driving to that lot to you Brian............and I`m still convinced you did Farnborough that year.

More to the point,we couldn`t fill a coach any more.

[kevmul]

I also remember it wasn't only Airshows that filled the MAS coaches. I had two trips to Heathrow in the 70's (possibly early 80's) leaving Speke sometime after midnight, arriving at Heathrow by 7am and having fully 12 hours to fill up my spotting logs before trekking home again.

Best part of 24-hours there and back but worth every minute.

Kev

[viscount]

Wadoki, that 'Thunderbirds are go' trip I'm fairly certain was a 'private venture' using a hire car, rather than MAS mini-bus. My logs and photos are currently in store, so I cannot easily look for any clues, indeed even if I went to Farnborough in 1979 as around that period I usually found myself away for weekend working at Colomendy (which will mean something to anyone who went to a Liverpool School!).

[Beemer]

MAS trip to Paris Air Show in early 80's via mini-bus was the most uncomfortable journey ever. I was sat next to some one with, in the words of Divine Comedy, "an ass as big as a small country". I was sat with one cheek on the seat and the other hovering in the aisle supported by my left leg. Other than that it was a good trip. Regards Beemer.

[airboejet]

Did MAS run a trip to Greenham common I remember going on a trip on a coach early 1980,s for RIAT big thunderstorm on the way down when we stopped at a service station and an electric pylon was hit near by from a lightening strike but can.t remember who ran it
Richard

[maverick]

Have to say the MAS coach trips were a huge part of my teenage years. First was 1972 and my last was 1976 when I started working and bought my own car.

Perhaps someone could record a list of them over the years to mark the social history of such groups and visits?

Here are mine carefully logged at the time - hope it interests someone.

I suspect the formatting will not translate onto the page but hopefully will still make sense



Date Cat. Sites visited Status Occasion Notes


20/05/1972 C Gatwick Airport Active Airport 1972 Air Fair MAS coach-trip
Biggin Hill Airfield Active Airfield


09/09/1972 C RAE Farnborough RAE Site 1972 SBAC Show MAS coach-trip
Heathrow Airport Active Airport
Blackbushe Airfield Active Airfield

03/03/1973 C RAF Museum, Hendon Museum MAS coach-trip
Heathrow Airport Active Airport

19/05/1973 C Gatwick Airport Active Airport MAS coach-trip
Biggin Hill Airfield Active Airfield 1973 Air Fair

16/06/1973 C RAF Museum, Colerne Museum MAS coach-trip
RAF Kemble Active RAF
RAF South Cerney Active RAF
RAF Hullavington Active RAF
Staverton Airport / Skyfame Museum Active Airfield
Cirencester Park Park Balloon Meet

17/05/1975 C Gatwick Airport Active Airport MAS coach-trip
Biggin Hill Airfield Active Airfield 1975 Air Fair

25/10/1975 C Gatwick Airport Active Airport MAS coach-trip
Gatwick Heliport "The Beehive"

23/11/1975 C Heathrow Airport Active Airport MAS coach-trip
RAF Northolt Active RAF

07/02/1976 C Heathrow Airport Active Airport MAS coach-trip
Kidlington Airfield Active Airfield

20/03/1976 C Heathrow Airport Active Airport MAS coach-trip
RAF Northolt Active RAF
RAF Museum, Hendon Museum

23/04/1976 C Heathrow Airport Active Airport MAS coach-trip
RAF Northolt Active RAF
Leavesden Airfield Active Airfield

11/09/1976 C Heathrow Airport Active Airport MAS coach-trip
RAF Northolt Active RAF
RAE Farnborough RAE Site 1976 SBAC Show

(C = by coach)

Maverick

[GHB]

Viscount, I remember the JFK trip pretty much as you said. Think you may have shared the driving with a very mature John Downey, who entertained us with a 'magic' trick involving an elastic band and his hair standing on end, and also his Mitchelin star meals of cold beans (straight from the tin of course) and Bakewell Taart.

Not sure about Sculthorpe, mixed memories here. Thought I went down with Martin Chell in his car, but also thought we went round the base in a minibus!


Mid 70s 'purges' (I think we called them), started happening as members started getting cars. Clive Harden (Mini), Brian Billington (Austin 1100/1300), Ken Ellis (Viva Estate?), Phil Duckett (Cortina), Martin Chell (Capri) and didn't you (Viscount) have a Beetle?

I'm sure some of the above will be able to verify/ correct me on this.

Regards CliffW (CZ175 motorbike)

[bulldog]

Cliff

Hi yes you are right about my white mini. Sad but I can even remember its reg DKC 238K, this was when several of us realised that the numbers on our registrations added up to 13. It then became a challenge to always try to but a car with numbers adding up to 13. In fact to this day my car number starts J13 even more OCD is that I got same for my wife J13 on hers as well.

I remember trips well, I don't recall JFK but went down to to see USS America with some people.  I seem to recall a trip with Brian in hired Marina which all the lights went out on at same time when we were going I think to Scotland.  Meal times were always entertaining from trying to make instant mash (Smash to you young ones) with Lager. That had to be tasted to be believed (Ugh!!)

Phil Duckett had a blue VW Beetle for a long time.  

I also fondly remember a trip to somewhere like shobden with Runc who was serving on the Ark royal at the time. When he came home on leave he would buy a car for about £10 then throw it away. On this trip we needed to change a front wheel. All tyres were totally bald but the spare!! was slightly less bald than the others. When we put the jack into the jacking point and rotated the handle the jacking point moved up through the extensive rust and filler of the Austin Cambridge and simply tore the wing off. Still pushed it back together and home we came. No doubt elf and safety police would stop fun like that now.

Happy days, good to recall even though some good friends you name no longer with us.

Clive

[billymc]

A very interesting thread,
I can remember the midnight starts from the old terminal at Speke for day at Heathrow via a 4am stop at Luton,
Other trips that spring to my old head are leuchars via Glasgow and Edinburgh with overnight stay at Aberdeen university halls of residence,
The next day Aberdeen airport to see close up the helicopter operations and a stop at Cumbernauld which had not been open long sorry the
Dates escape me for the trip,
Other trips that stay fresh in the memory are biggin hill day trip by dan air hs748, - approx 1980,
Paris CDs by paramount md80 - grand national charter for Concorde passengers - sorry I can not remember the date,
And aer lingus sd360 day return to Dublin again a grand national charter - approx 1991,
Sorry to be so vague with the dates but time has not be so great to memory,
Happy days,

[wadoki]

Towards the end of the `76 season Tony Williams,who ran the MAS coach trips,was away in the US.Volunteer needed so muggins here stepped forward!

My short and chequered career as coach trip organiser:

Farnborough 9/76
Two coaches delayed departure from show due to missing spotter(and yes,I do remember who it was).Waited ages(no mobiles!) only to find he went home via Manchester with TAS.

Leuchars 9/76
Coach went tech at the show.Fix takes hours and we arrive home in the wee small hours.
`Reception committee` of angry parents want to "have a word with the organiser"..................I was not much older than their bloody kids so I bugger off and leave them looking for Ken Ellis!!
.............sorry Ken

[ronturner]

...and not to mention the trips to France and Spain in 1964 (?) and Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France. I think the latter was in 1965. I particularly remember when in Germany, with us all from Liverpool and The Beatles being so famous, we never had to buy a pint of beer for the whole time there. My tent being invaded by two young women anxious for "The Beatles experience" is quite another story.
To say "happy days" is an understatement.

[wadoki]

.............any women out there looking for "the Metallica experience"?

[Beemer]

A weekend in Holland via two Genair Bandeirantes. Now that was a great trip. I travelled in G-RVIP and got a full cooked breakfast while those in the other got sarnies. Then there was the trip to France by mini-bus and it broke down and myself having at the time some mechanical knowledge got it going again. I don't know if it was the same trip but I nearly came to blows with Wal Gandy. Ah!! Memories. Regards Beemer.