Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Norwich Airport (EGSH) lies at Hellesdon on the northern edge of Norwich, Norfolk, occupying the site of the former RAF Horsham St Faith. Today it combines scheduled and charter passenger services, North Sea helicopter operations and flying training on a single long, lit runway with an ILS approach, making it a useful and historically rich destination for the VFR pilot.
Norwich Airport sits at Hellesdon, about 2.5 miles north of Norwich city centre, on the site of the former RAF Horsham St Faith. It is licensed by the Civil Aviation Authority for public transport flights and flying instruction, and today handles scheduled and charter airline services alongside a significant amount of helicopter and executive charter traffic, making it an interesting mixed-traffic environment for a visiting light aircraft pilot.
The airfield is located at Hellesdon, Norfolk, close to the northern edge of the city of Norwich. It is a controlled aerodrome with its own approach, radar and tower services, reflecting its role as a public transport airport handling scheduled airline and helicopter traffic in and around the Norwich area.
Norwich has a single physical runway, 09/27, of 6,016 feet with a hard surface and runway lighting. An ILS is available on runway 27, giving an instrument approach into the westerly runway; runway 09 is the reciprocal easterly direction.
Pilots should expect to work Norwich Approach on 119.355 MHz, which also serves as Norwich Radar/LARS on the same frequency. Norwich Director operates on 128.33 MHz and Norwich Handling on 131.855 MHz. The Tower frequency is 124.255 MHz, and the ATIS (Norwich Information) broadcasts on 128.63 MHz.
The airfield lies close to the built-up area of Norwich itself, with Hellesdon immediately adjacent; the city of Norwich to the south provides an obvious general landmark for pilots orientating themselves toward the field.
The current airfield began life as RAF Horsham St Faith, developed from 1939 and officially opened on 1 June 1940 as an RAF bomber station. From September 1942 it was made available to the USAAF's Eighth Air Force as Station 123 (HF), before passing to RAF Fighter Command on 10 July 1945, when four Gloster Meteor squadrons were based there. It remained a front-line RAF station, participating in numerous post-war exercises, until it was deactivated on 1 August 1963 and the RAF finally left on 24 March 1967. Much of the airfield and its buildings were then sold to Norwich City Council and Norfolk County Council, with a small portion retained by the Ministry of Defence, and Norwich Airport Limited developed the site into the modern civil airport, with the main terminal opening in 1988. Air Anglia established a base there in 1971, launching charter flights across north-western Europe, including the Amsterdam route still flown today by KLM Cityhopper. An earlier Norwich Airport had existed from 1933 on Mousehold Heath, used by Boulton & Paul for test flying, but it fell into disuse early in the Second World War. Many wartime buildings survive in converted use, including former hangars now used for aircraft maintenance and one for an aviation academy, and the original military control tower still stands, its ground floor still in use. A memorial display inside the terminal and a permanent memorial outside its east end commemorate the RAF and USAAF personnel who served at the station, and since 1985 the City of Norwich Aviation Museum, founded in 1977, has stood on the airfield's north side with nineteen aircraft on display, on part of the old 17/35 runway.
Norwich Airport continues as a licensed public transport aerodrome, offering scheduled and charter flights to UK and European destinations, with KLM Cityhopper's long-standing Amsterdam service among its routes. Alongside airline traffic, Bristow Helicopters, DanCopter and Babcock Mission Critical Services Offshore operate crew flights to North Sea gas and oil installations, and SaxonAir provides executive aircraft and helicopter charter services from the field. The airport's CAA licence also covers flying instruction, and former RAF hangars on the site remain in use for aircraft maintenance and aviation training.
