Talk:Silverstone Heliport
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More than one Silverstone Heliport
[edit]The complete history of Silverstone 'Heliport' is a little more complicated.
Air-Britain has some nice photos going back to when full size aircraft (up to small executive jets) would land on a section of runway that still exists in 2024, but is no longer marked out as a runway.
- Here are a variety of fixed-wing aircraft in 1979 https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1853764
- And a collection of helicopters from the same year https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1853626
- This Swiss Executive jet in 1995 is possibly one of the last normal fixed-wing visitors, (other than 'specials' - see below) https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1138842
- Fast forward to 2005, and this nice aerial shot shows a large number of helicopters parked up, adjacent to the runway (still marked '06'). It is possible the grass area was strictly for parking, not for off-loading arriving passengers, but being honest, that is a guess. https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1031073
- 2009 was an unusual year, possibly due to a Red Bull Air Race event (?), because it brought a large number of fixed-wing high performance single-seat racing/aerobatic types, from the USA, Russia, and all over Europe. In fact the only registration prefix missing was G- which is somewhat ironic. https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1189795
A couple of 'normal' fixed wing general aviation types joined in (e.g. PA-28), but all of these types are quite happy to land on any decent patch of grass.
From 2010 onwards the photos are just helicopters, although that doesn't automatically mean that the occasional fixed-wing aircraft didn't slip into Silverstone.
What have all these fixed-wing aircraft got to do with the heliport? To me it seems as if the original heliport was simply an airfield (with a proper runway) that no longer received fixed-wing aircraft on a regular basis.
But it gets better! The heliport that most people associate with Silverstone is not the official heliport!
EGBV is described as Silverstone North, is open all year round, with a short grass runway (marked 06/24) that can be viewed on Google Earth. This website https://airportguide.com/airport/info/egbv has a map showing its exact location, but is it a good source? Sloane Helicopters (aka Silverstone Helis) website has the following text, but you need to read between the lines to appreciate that they are talking about two distinct locations at Silverstone. Silverstone Helicopters provides a full range of flight training, [etc] ... from their headquarters at the circuit. Additionally, Silverstone Helicopters provides all ground handling at the circuit including operating the temporary heliport during the British Grand Prix.
The temporary heliport that receives up to 4,000 movements on the day of the British Grand Prix is in a different location, marked out with nine docking pads (B, C, D and 1-6) visible on Google Earth at the south-east corner of Silverstone, adjacent to Stowe Corner.
This Wikipedia article doesn't mention any of this, but finding sources that fully back up everything I have said is proving almost impossible. At the moment my thoughts are unverified, and possibly count as 'original research'. The last time I edited an article to improve it without full citations, my edit got trashed. I'm not doing that again, so that leaves us with the original article, horribly incorrect, and also lacking in citations. Is there a solution to this?