Leaderboard

You are quite correct….the concept of a Sheffield heliport predates it’s use by Sheffield University by a few years. It was opened in 1963 to coincide With the Royal Institute of British Architectures meeting being held in the City that year……publicity for the City being a reason. Westland Aircraft of Yeovil , a company with strong Sheffield links, supplied the helicopters and the Council the site. Occasional use of the heliport was made after the meeting but no regular traffic ensued ( except for the already mentioned university geology department) Hopes for a regular link with Manchester Airport were finally dashed in September 1970 when it was revealed that the then currently available commercial helicopters, “could only fly in daylight ...and not at any height during winter months…The scheme would have to await a future generation of helicopters” ,reported Alderman Reg Munn who had attended the meetings in Manchester. Sheffield was ,in the words of Miles Thomas the 1954 Chairman of BOAC…”likely to remain an Aviation Wilderness unless it moved within a few years to become connected” . This eventually happened in 1998 …when Sheffield City Airport opened…swiftly being closed by its new owners who wished to concentrate aerial activity at Finningley ….which they had recently acquired . With recent news coming out of the Peel Group it looks as if Sheffield will remain an aviation wilderness with the threatened closure of their underused Doncaster Sheffield Airport.