London Biggin Hill Airport

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London Biggin Hill Airport Biggin Hill Airport
IATA: BQH - ICAO: EGKB
Summary
Airport type		Public
Operator		Regional Airports Ltd.
Serves		London
Elevation AMSL		598 ft (182 m)
Coordinates		51°19′51″ N 0°1′57″ E (51.330833333333, 0.0325)
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	ft	m	Surface
03/21	5,912	1,802	Tarmac
11/29	2,598	792	Asphalt

London Biggin Hill Airport (IATA: BQH, ICAO: EGKB), formerly RAF Biggin Hill, is an airport at Biggin Hill in London Borough of Bromley, England. It is one of London's six international airports, along with Heathrow, Gatwick, City, Stansted and Luton.

[edit] History

It opened in 1917 as a communications base. During the Second World War it was a Royal Air Force station and one of the commanding bases for the Battle of Britain with both Spitfires and Hurricanes being based here.

After the war, Biggin Hill became the Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre for the RAF. Due to the impending closure of the nearby original London Airport at Croydon, from 1956 much of the civilian light aviation from Croydon relocated to Biggin and it became a joint civilian/military airport. Croydon closed completely in 1959, at which time Biggin ceased to be an operational military flying base and became a mainly civilian airport with only occasional military flying taking place.

The RAF station eventually closed in 1992 as the Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre moved to RAF Cranwell. By this time Biggin Hill had become a busy civilian airport, albeit with no scheduled passenger services. There is an ongoing legal dispute about whether such services should be allowed to use the airport.

The airport's main runway is usable by aircraft up to Boeing 737/Airbus A320 size. Runway 21 has an ILS and radar Air traffic control (ATC) services are provided by Thames Radar at the London Terminal Control Centre, while procedural approach and VFR ATC services are provided by Biggin itself. Traffic is mainly light aircraft and privately owned business aircraft.

Many flying schools and private light aircraft based on the airport due to its proximity to London.

Biggin Hill is also the location of an annual airshow, usually on the first weekend in June.

The airport is the scene of the landing of Lord Teabing's private jet in the bestselling book, The Da Vinci Code by author Dan Brown. One of the runways also appears on the back cover of Pink Floyd's 1969 album Ummagumma.