MANCHESTER AIRPORT

Aviation enthusiasts and all air-minded people will welcome Alan Scholefield's new book, in which the first sixty years of Manchester Airport's operations are described in words and pictures. 

Now the UK's foremost locally owned airport, Manchester opened on 25 June 1938. Since then it has developed into the twentieth busiest airport world, in terms of international passengers. The airport now serves more than sixteen million travellers per annum, while in the airfield's first fourteen months before the outbreak of the Second World War there were a mere eight thousand passengers. 

As well as covering the dramatic physical development of the airport — the new terminals and runways that have been necessary — and the aircraft that have flown into and out of Manchester, Alan Scholefield has researched the military operations that took place from 1938 to 1960. Newly discovered wartime documents and photographs illustrate many aspects of the RAF's activities, including parachute training, development of gliding techniques and the operations of 613 Squadron, while military aircraft manufacture by Fairey, Avro and others is not overlooked.