gentlemen
by coincidence i found your website. i flew the ol gatvx bolkow j.,auster gatax, cessna n5644b,
graham chilvers, j. bent,phil phillips were my flt instructors.bob swainson tried to put a chute around me, larry browning ..i used to rag down the oil from his cessna..
wulf erhardt was my commander at the gaf goch, his initials were et echo tango...
presently am working in flt ops at luebeck airport, EDHL (LBC)
anybody that would like to hear more from me pls contact me on my
above email address
you find my phote on page 1..the people 1968-75
faithfully your rick weigel

Hi Guys,

Just an update on G-AREI, she now rest with the the Eggesford Heritage Flight in Devon and can be seen in www.eggesfordairfield.co.uk

Cheers,

Nigel

Many of you may not Know that the club started when Nick Nichols found the Prentice in the back of the gliding club hanger
and asked Ian Smith if he could make it fly. Ian roped me in to sort the engine why he worked on the airframe. The thing looked like something out of a cartoon, a list to port, flat tyres and peeling paint. The scavenge filter was full of piston rings and the airframe was in worse condition.We could not afford to buy proper piston rings with the correct bits of paper and I seem to remember that we used Chevrolet Motorcar rings which fitted give or take an inch and I to remember that among other repairs that Ian fabricated a tail wheel axle from one the hanger door bolts and Nick set of in a cloud of smoke clutching a rubber boat and a parachute trailing a trailing a cloud of smoke that the "Arrows" would have been proud of. He reached the U.K. safely where he sold the Prentice for £100.00,Bought the AUSTER 3 1/2 from Major Sommerton-Rayner (sorry if the spelling is wrong, Sir, it was 40 years ago) who had built it in Malaya and flown it home, and the rest is history. Keith Duffy

I was so glad that this flying club was not forgoten! I joined the club back in 1982 till march 1984 when the buccaneer squadrons where disbanded. i took part in running the bar handing out those bottles of carlsburg and grolz (spelling!) from that very deep cold box behind the bar. My first lessons were with jim babbington followed up by tim stors and robin williams. I loved my time at the club and remember all the members there with affection. A very relaxed atmosphere in which to learn to fly . Hope to make a return to the website soon! Lawrence Baldwin

Hi Andy

Many thanks for your very kind comments. Its good to hear from you and very pleasing indeed that you enjoyed the site so much. One of the great pleasures of running this site is the way that every few months another one of the old crowd - Flying Club or Gliding Club - comes out of the woodwork and rejoins our "community"! There's getting to be quite a few of us now!

Keep watching. The site is still being added to whenever we receive new information or additional photos.

Very best regards

LLFC Webmaster

Hi, I'm Andy Gardiner ex Two Rivers Gliding Club. I wish our club had a memory page like this one. I didn't know of this web-site until out of curiosity I looked up RAF Laarbruch on Wikipedia. There at the bottom was the link to this web-site.

Wow! I spent the next few hours reading every word, looking at every photgraph and generally soaking up the nostalgia. Whilst as clubs we seldom had much close contact, we never-the-less shared the skies over Laarbruch quite well and mostly got on with each other on excellent terms.

I live in Krefeld now and occasionally go to Laarbruch to either collect someone from the airport or bring them there. The feeling of nostalgia which creeps over me each time is almost overwhelming. My first ever flight at Laarbruch was some time in June 1968 and just looking at the old place, to see the number of ghosts crawling all over airfield ... there's the winch, here comes the retrieve car, there's the Bölkow taxying ready for take-off ..... and so on. Oh my dear God!

Thanks a million for the excellence of this site. Sadly I have no photographs to augment your collection, but I hope there will be some friends who will be able to provide a few.

All the best to ANYONE who flew at RAF Laarbruch during those glorious years.

What a great web page you have. There is now a Laarbruch museum since Jun 07 and maybe you would like to add it to your links page. www.laarbruch-museum.net
The museum would also like to print out you pages so that they can make a book for the visitors to read if that is agreed.

To all those avid flyers amongst you and I know there are a few left I send my regards. I only wish that we could all have one more reunion. I am still in touch with Gary Holt and until a few years ago Bill Hickman who has now unfortunatly passed away. The memories of my service time at Laarbruch and of the NPFC are still strong. I even have photographs of the guys and gals that were there on the last day. I would like to regain contact with some of the crew; John Horn, Paul Chinnek etc. If anyone is out there and wants to rekindle memories or jst pass the time let me know.

I had the priviledge of flying in on three consecutive occasions, including the final one, to take part in the club rallies (at the time flying British Airways Flying Club Piper Warriors)
The hospitality of all the club members over the rally weekends, the "flying" competitions, and general cameraderie will always remain as a fond memory, as will my memories of the station during my three years there (78-81)whilst serving.
Happy Days.

Look at some pics %26 video of Laarbruch nowadays. http://youtube.com/watch?v=wEwIRy0jQqY