TAKE FLIGHT AVIATION AT ENSTONETake Flight Aviation Limited at Enstone Airfield in Oxfordshire (EGTN) offers you a private flying club with unrivalled facilities, providing its members general aviation aircraft hire without the limits imposed by many flying schools, the hassle associated with flying groups or the financial burden of aircraft ownership. The airfield at Enstone has a hard runway 08/26 that is 800 metres long and a parallel grass runway (known as North side Grass) which is 1000 metres in length not to be confused with the shorter also parallel grass runway to the South. Members enjoy the use of modern pilot lounge facilities and preferential aircraft hire rates, leaving you to fly and enjoy great aircraft as if they were your own! With no minimum daily hours aircraft hire, PPL members can take an aircraft away for a weekend or even a week and only pay for the hours they fly. Members flying aircraft from Take Flights Enstone base receive free landings at London Oxford subject to picking up fuel at Oxford airport.
Enstone airfield first opened in 1942 as a satellite base to RAF Moreton in the Marsh and was used by Wellingtons for operational training. Take Flight currently have use of the hard runway via an arrangement with Oxfordshire Sport Flying that operate motor gliders that lease the runway from the owners and also use of the North side grass runway that is owned and operated by Enstone Airlines. The airfield is currently benefiting from significant investment both at the airfield and nearby, with construction of a new club house planned in the near future and several hangars have been renovated or replaced. The airfield is next to the exclusive Soho Farmhouse, set in 100 acres of the Oxfordfordshire countryside, the unique development has been created by multi-million pound investment in renovating a previously derelict farm. Once described as more like the set of the Truman Show than your typical rural retreat, it offers its private member clientele an idyllic setting for restaurants, pub, cinema, gym, pools, rooms, lakeside lodges and more. In addition work has started on a further £150m investment project, recently given planning approval to create a motor museum, that also joins the airfield. Whilst Enstone airfield may once have been considered the poor relation to more established airfields nearby, recent investment has given the airfield a new lease of life and the addition of Take Flight Aviation voted the UK’s best flying club in 2020 is surely the icing on the cake. |
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TAKE FLIGHT AVIATION IN OXFORDLondon Oxford Airport (EGTK) formally known as Kidlington is the Thames Valley area’s primary regional and business aviation airport and the only commercial airport between London Heathrow and Birmingham. Located in the heart of one of Europe’s fastest growing and most prosperous regions, Oxford lies 40 miles to the north-west of the Greater London area, halfway to the UK’s industrial heartland of the Midlands. The airport has been the fastest growing facility for private and business aviation in the UK since 2007. Take Flight Aviation has partnered with the airport to continue to expand its General Aviation business and is based in its own lounge within the airports prestigious Business Centre. The Take Flight Lounge also welcomes visiting pilots.
The site was first used as an aerodrome in the late 1930’s. From the mid-sixties, the airfield was best known as the home of CSE Aviation and the Oxford Air Training School now Oxford Aviation Academy, one of the world’s most successful professional pilot training establishments having trained well over 18,000 airline pilots for more than 80 airlines over the last 40 years. The airport has two runways 01/19 of 1552 metres and 29/11 of 760 metres. The airfield has an ILS on runway 19. The airport is owned by Aldersgate Investments Limited part of Reuben Brothers Holdings that has a varied portfolio of interests in property and several other businesses. Take Flight Aviation members with an existing pilots licence will be able to enjoy a range of self-service facilities based at Oxford Airport in the jet terminal. With our full aircraft fleet only a few minutes away by air from our Enstone base, aircraft are available to hire by request. With its 1552 m (5092ft) x 30 metere main runway with ILS, NDB and Cat1 approach light Oxford airport is a great choice for Night Ratings and Instrument training for your IR(R). Please contact our Enstone base for bookings out of Oxford. |
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TAKE FLIGHT AVIATION AT SHENINGTON - EDGE HILLTake Flight Aviation is proud to have a base at Shenington Airfield. The owner of Shenington Joe Gibbs approached Take Flight Aviation who shared his vision to rejuvenate flying activity at the site, which is great news given the numerous airfields closing down!
Although Shenington has been a predominantly a gliding site for many years it has always had a handful of powered aircraft and now Take Flight members can have access to aircraft there only a stones throw away from our former home at Wellesbourne. We are working closely with Edgehill Gliding Centre to ensure that powered aircraft and gliders can integrate safely and like the airfield owner support EGC to rejuvenate activity and make the site a more open place where people from the wider community will want to come and fly and stay. Joe is upgrading the site continually and has already worked with Take Flight Aviation to provide a small but perfectly formeed club house and lovely patio area perfect for willing away a sunny afternoon. The clubhouse has a kitchen, toilet and shower |
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TAKE FLIGHT & WELLESBOURNEA lot of people ask why are Take Flight Aviation (TFA) are no longer at Wellesbourne? Put simply its because we saved the airfield! TFA led the campaign to Save Wellesbourne Airfield in support of Stratford District Council's (SDC) core strategy with a commitment to “retain and support the enhancement of the established flying functions and aviation related facilities at Wellesbourne Airfield."
TFA set up the "Save Wellesbourne Airfield" campaign and following the airfield owners winning a legal case to evict the tenants at the airfield, lobbied the Council to protect the airfield by way of a Compulsory Purchase Order. Essentially what saved the airfield was we advised the council that the airfield could be protected by imposing an article 4 direction on the site, removing the owners permitted development rights, stopping the landowners demolishing the buildings on the airfield, without planning consent. The council acted on this advise immediately and the council leader acknowledged that Take Flight were responsible for saving the airfield and possibly its immediate demolition. Following the threat of a CPO and unable to demolish the business premises, the owners of the site and the council entered into a "Memorandum of Understanding" which required them to enter into negotiations with all the business remaining at the site, to offer them temporary licences. However, the landlords refused to offer a licence to Take Flight in breach of the agreement, despite being the airfield's biggest fixed wing operator. The landowners stated the reason they did not offer TFA a licence was because their actions had prevented them doing what they wanted with the site. Despite Take Flights actions alone, having saved the airfield and the obvious discrimination, SDC refused to hold the landowners to the agreement or take the action they had promised if they breached the agreement and honour the commitments SDC had made to TFA despite representations made by Wellesbourne Parish Council, MP and Department for Transport. Take Flight were refused permission to remove our own buildings from the site, as the council said they were “essential to the viability of the airfield” but failed to hold the owners to account for breaching the agreement. Our buildings remain at Wellesbourne and we hope to return one day, but our operations at Enstone and Shenington will always continue as well as we expand our network of sites. |
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