SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Some dramatic video clips of crosswind landings at LBA in recent gales as reported in the national papers.
http://tinyurl.com/qzp9ju7
I never realised that LBA, or Yeadon Aerodrome as I still call it, has the highest airport runway in the Uk until I read it in the Telegraph this week.

i have had two bad landings at LBA on one the pilot apologised for a very hard landing on the other the plane fishtaled down the runway in heavy rain.and i have only flown from there about six times.

My Brother was in the R.A.F. at Yeadon in 1953 and I remember him saying about all the near misses with aircraft both service and commercial planes. apparently sometimes, owing to the wind direction. some went over Leeds at very low heights

j.c.d. wrote:My Brother was in the R.A.F. at Yeadon in 1953 and I remember him saying about all the near misses with aircraft both service and commercial planes. apparently sometimes, owing to the wind direction. some went over Leeds at very low heights

The predominant landing direction still takes them over central Leeds at low heights. When on the Leeds Beckett Headingley Campus they are so low it feels like I can reach up an touch them.

tyke bhoy wrote:

j.c.d. wrote:My Brother was in the R.A.F. at Yeadon in 1953 and I remember him saying about all the near misses with aircraft both service and commercial planes. apparently sometimes, owing to the wind direction. some went over Leeds at very low heights

The predominant landing direction still takes them over central Leeds at low heights. When on the Leeds Beckett Headingley Campus they are so low it feels like I can reach up an touch them.

Yes, the odd time I have landed at Yeadon (not diverted to Manchester) I noticed a great view of the City. it seems back in the old days some of the aircraft took off also over Leeds which the pilot had to put the aircraft to its limit just getting up . quite scary for all concerned I would imagine. when I lived in Leeds we tended to go from Doncaster or East Midlands working on the assumption we would take off and land on time safely.

I spent quite a few years travelling back and forth from LBA to Belfast [Harbour - now George Best, hic] on the Shorts "Sky Caravans" and landings in these things at either end could be a real white-knuckle affair. At least at Leeds you were only ever going to end up on the grass if it went wrong.

This Air France Concorde video is quite old now, but despite the poor quality it’s still worth watching to see why the Air France pilots refused to fly another Concorde into Yeadon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79LE4ty_gkM

The Yeadon crosswinds didn't put off the British Airways pilots who continued to fly the Concorde into LBA until just 1 month before the Air France Concorde crashed.