EGCC MANCHESTER PART 3

Steve Balfour has found an old archive of his Manchester photo collection. Here are the first few. I’ve started a new EGCC part 3 in anticipation.

3CC1

The exterior shot from Feb’ 84 shows the VCR prior to the addition of the SMR. The balcony was an excellent spot for spending your half-hour breaks, reading, watching planes or soaking up the sun. On the railings, you can just make out the 2 Campbell-Stokes Sunshine Recorders, used by the NW Regional Met Office, who were on the 3rd floor of the original pert of the tower. To the right of the VCR, the metal framework was part of the microwave dish structure which brought CLH data to PATCRU. There were 2 dishes, which had been removed by 1979.

3CC2 On the ‘D’ Watch pic’, L-R is Arthur Edwards on GMC, Bill Crosse on Front-Desk ATSA, & Geoff Carter u/t Air Controller.

3CC3 Mike Dooley was on ‘C’ Watch, and came to Manch’ from EGGP when NATS lost the contract. Previously he flew Vansity & Hastings a/c in The RAF.

3CC4 Early 1980s Des Adams on Air

3CC5 Norman Alty DFC (and bar?) on GMC

3CC6 this 7 and 8 below from Barry Davidson Concorde G-BOAF

3CC7 LX-LGU (Luxair) ERJ-145LU at Manchester

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3CC9 Don Binks, sitting at the ‘NODE M’, (NATS Operational Display Equipment – Manchester) Manchester Approach Consoles in the early 1990s.

More on this later, but NODE M replaced the Mediator Suites that were installed when the Sub-Centre opened 16 years earlier.

3CC10 dated 1956

3CC11 dated 1950. This and the one above are posted earlier in EGCC part 2 but these are better quality.

3CC12 This looks like inside an early Gilfillan GCA truck, very early headsets and wartime/prewar microphones. The Airmin bought several surplus USAAF Gillfillan GCAs for civil airfields. They were in use from late 1944 (Hurn and Aldermaston). Steve suggests the nearest controller might be Bill Pratt.

3CC13 dated 1930s

Here are some pictures of the 1962 EGCC VCR, taken in the late 1980s

The folks are the same in each one,

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3CC15

3CC16 the names on the shot with the chap in the waistcoat standing are: L to R

Vince Gillibrand, GMC ATSA,

Bill Thompson, Back Desk ATSA, standing

Mike Dooley, Air Controller, monitoring Matt Clayton u/t.

Mike Haywood, Air ATSA, sitting, yellow shirt.

Matt Clayton, Air u/t, standing.

Tony Brown, GMC, white shirt.

The wall on the N side of the VCR obscured the view to the N, so when T2 was built, the VCR was demolished and replaced with a larger, slightly higher one in the early 1990s.

The original EGCC Approach room was behind that wall, but it became the VCR restroom when approach moved to the Sub Centre in Jan 1975.

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3CC19 The other 3 pictures show John B Gilbert (ex EGLL) & Mike D Haywood, (ex Hack Green), on a Boxing Day morning duty. JG reading E&M

3CC20 The ‘cartoon’ chart was in the Shell Guide To London Airport, (or was it Heathrow), a fold out leaflet, which Steve Balfour purchased on his first visit there in 1968 and triggered Steve’s interest in ATC .

3CC21 The High Level AERAD is from 1971.

3CC 22 and 23 The Manchester TMA charts are from 1976. Thanks to Bill Maffey, who was amending the AIP on a night duty in that year.

3CC24 The BOAC picture shows the first visit of a 747 to EGCC, August 1970, GAWNC, with the ‘Tower Block Extension’, which housed the Sub Centre, under construction.

3CC25 The aerial shot shows the extension complete. Don’t have a date for this. Both BOAC shots are old, now sadly dismantled, EGCC airport archive.