St. Albans

Sir,

I am surprised that you do not recall the aeroplane crossing which was at one time on your door-step. I refer to Blackbushe where a number of hangars were on the south side of the main road whilst the rest of the Airport was to the north. I recall seeing some Vikings and I think a Bristol Freighter for the Argentinian Air Force south of the road in the nineteen-fifties.

St. Albans. ROBERT TOWELL

(I have also been reminded that British Airways machines cross the Harlington-Hatton Cross public road many times a day at a traffic-lightcontrolled crossing at Heathrow, usually towed by tractor but occasionally and expensively by jetpower, and that during the last war what is now the main entrance to White Waltham was a crossing between the flying field and a parking meadow. On the subject of aircraft tractors, my informant recalls the Mercury, used by BOAC in the late-1950s, which had a Ford Ten 100E power unit; they normally shifted engines on trestles but would apparently move a Brittia. – Ed).