Popham Airfield News & Updates

Popham Airfield’s Survival Guide to Winter Flying

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:20:19 GMT

Popham Airfield’s Survival Guide to Winter Flying

There is a specific kind of magic that happens at Popham on a crisp January morning. While the rest of the world is scraping ice off their windscreens and complaining about the dark, the light aircraft community is doing something much more productive: eyeing the ‘gin-clear’ horizon and checking the oil pressure.

Winter flying at Popham isn’t just a seasonal challenge; it’s an opportunity to see the Hampshire countryside under a pristine, frost-dusted lens. But as any regular at the Spitfire Flying Club will tell you, the transition from summer ‘bimbling’ to winter operations requires a bit more than just a thicker fleece.

The Performance Perk

If you feel like your aircraft is suddenly on steroids, you aren't imagining it. Cold air is denser air. This means:

Better Lift: Your wings find more ‘meat’ in the air.
Better Thrust: Your propeller bites harder.
Faster Climbs: You’ll find yourself reaching circuit height noticeably faster than you did in July.

Just remember that while the engine loves the cold, your carburettor might have other ideas. Popham’s proximity to the moisture-laden trees near the A303 makes carb ice a silent predator. Keep that carb heat knob in mind, especially during those long, low-power descents.

Navigating the ‘Popham Bog’

The legendary grass runways of Popham - 08/26 and 03/21 - take a beating in the British winter. If you're planning a visit, check the NOTAMs and call the Popham radio AGCS desk in advance.

In particularly wet spells, it might be requested that you use the south taxiway (the one running parallel to the A303) to avoid the muddier patches. Watch out for the threshold of Runway 03 - it has a reputation for being a bit soft when the water table rises. A soft-field takeoff technique isn't just a flight school exercise here - it's a survival skill for your wheel spats!

Essential Winter Prep

Frost is a Flight-Killer: Never hope the frost will blow off during the takeoff roll. A layer of frost as thin as sandpaper can reduce lift by up to 40%.
The Low Sun: Flying west on Runway 26 at 15:30? You’ll be staring directly into a blinding Hampshire sunset. Keep those sunglasses handy and your lookout sharp.
Pre-Heat Your Engine: Cold oil is like treacle. If you’re based at Popham, a quick pre-heat can save your engine (and your battery) a world of hurt.

The Reward: Coffee and Community

The best part of a winter sortie at Popham? The landing. There is nothing quite like the smell of a bacon roll wafting from the clubhouse after a successful offset approach over the silos.

2025 events hit new heights

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 18:23:58 GMT

2025 Popham Events Hit New Heights

Microlight Trade Fair

The start of May – days are getting longer, the sun is shining more often, and Popham Airfield hosts its annual Microlight Trade Fair. This year the weather didn’t disappoint – warm and sunny, we saw over 1,600 visitors throughout the weekend, with over 30 exhibitors present.

New for 2025 was our Careers Tent – working with a number of organisations including Metal Seagulls, Basingstoke College of Technology (BCoT) and the CAA, our aim was to highlight that aviation and aerospace career entry routes are vast - from technical courses studied at university, to apprenticeships, graduate programmes, and even military service.

Most people know about training to become a pilot or flight attendant as a career, but there are so many other job roles across the aviation and aerospace industries which are often overlooked - at this year's event, the purpose of our dedicated tent for careers was to allow anyone and everyone to get involved in understanding the diverse range of opportunities available and what's required to get started in the industry.

The Metal Seagulls team are huge advocates for getting young people into aviation and were a big driving force behind what we had on offer over the weekend – hands on activities included learning how to use a rivet gun and building a working propeller. BCoT and YES (Youth Education Support) were also on hand to offer advice and expertise for youngsters thinking about a career in aviation.

Outside of the Careers Tent, many familiar faces returned to exhibit both on the flightline and in our marquee, but we also had some new companies join us, including Wilco Radio and ALPA Simulation, whose first visit to the Popham Microlight Trade Fair was a success.

The speaker’s tent was also popular throughout the weekend, with talks from the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN), LX Navigation, Airbourne Aviation, and PilotAware.

We even had a large number of doggos enjoying the show!

Model Show

Moved from the September date of previous years due to clashes with other shows, this year’s Model Show was held the weekend after the Microlight Trade Fair. The date change proved popular as we had over 25 traders attend for 2025 – a 550% increase on 2024!

This in turned pulled in our highest ever number of pilots – with the final number coming in at just over 70. Kudos to the British Model Flying Association (Southern Area) especially Dave Franks and Pete Bennett who had the mammoth task of fitting everyone into the super tight schedule.

The standard of flying was, as always, world class, with the pilots delivering varied and exciting displays over both days, including awesome RC combat, turbine jet power, super skilful heli pickups and clever formation flying. Model highlights included Jon Horne’s 1/3 scale Yak 52, Joe Lofthouse’s Red Arrows 1:3.75 scale CARF Bae Hawk, Steve Carr’s 55% scale Yak 54 and Adam Broomhead’s 50% scale Bucker Jungmeister.

Exhibitors were also strong in numbers, as we invited back crowd favourites Clipping Point RC Drift Club, Portsmouth & District Model Power Boat Club, the Whoopy drones, Basingstoke Model Boat Club and Steve Harper’s Airport Aerodrome & Airfield Special Interest Group. Newcomers included Portsmouth Model Boat Display Team with their highly detailed model boats, ships, and tanks, and Solent Aviation Art Society who displayed their own artwork and ran a competition for budding young artists.

Overall, we saw over 2,300 visitors across the weekend and had lots of positive feedback from families, RC enthusiasts, pilots, traders and exhibitors.

Same again next year - see you there!

Popham’s summer evening BBQs off to a flying start!

Fri, 23 May 2025 17:01:44 GMT

Popham’s summer evening BBQs off to a flying start!

A regular favourite of many a Popham supporter, the evening fly-in on 23rd May kicked off the BBQ season with a bang. Despite the weather threatening to dampen our spirits in the days leading up to the event, on the day, it stayed dry, if a little blustery and chilly for those braving it without a jacket!

Attendance was excellent, with around 30 visiting aircraft, and many more enjoying a tasty meal from the café BBQ (Millie the dog included!)

We also had the pleasure of chatting to Fiona Macaskill over a burger – for those not already in the know, Fiona holds four world records from the World Air Sports Federation (FAI) for being the fastest female paraglider. On top of that, both Fiona and her husband Angus have been presented separately with FAI awards for setting world land speed records, and in 2020 set a Guinness World Record for landing on 71 airfields in 12 hours, averaging one airfield every 9 minutes!

Visiting aircraft included a Robin DR400, Binder-Aviatik CP301S, Aeronca 7BCM Champion, Grumman American AA-5B Tiger, Auster J-1 Kingsland, Pietenpol AirCamper, FLS Aerospace Sprint Club, Evektor-Aerotechnik EV-97 Eurostar, Denney Kitfox Mk.II, Piper PA-28-161 Cadet, Alpi Pioneer 400 and Extra 300S.

Join us for our next BBQ fly-in from 5pm on Thursday 19 ^th June – all welcome, by air or road!

Popham Events: Behind the Scenes

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 21:55:08 GMT

Popham Events: Behind the Scenes

As you can imagine, a lot goes into planning the Popham events, but it’s not something many see, so here’s a sneak peek behind the scenes from this year’s goings-on...

1. Early starts (and late nights!)

Inevitably, the team sometimes needs to work long days coming up to and during the events. Starts can be as early as 6am to meet with traders and exhibitors entering the site, and once the show closes, we have to make sure the site is clean and tidy for the next day’s activities. Sometimes (as with the Microlight Trade Show and Classic Car Show) we run back to back events – so the new setup has to be turned around between one show closing at 4pm and the next one opening at 10am the next day, which can be a bit full on!

It is however lovely to witness the airfield early on a misty morning.

2. Golf buggies

Anyone who says golf buggies aren’t fun are lying – they are a complete hoot! And essential to the setup and running of our events – from quick transport around site, to taxiing visitors and carrying goods about – we couldn’t do without them. Oh and did I mention? They are very fun ��

3. Doggos

Being event organiser has its perks – one of which is meeting as many dogs as possible - visitor, exhibitor, caterer or trader – if you have a dog, I will likely appear to pet it at some point.

And sometimes my dog Cali comes along to help set up too…

4. Food

Keeping up the energy is vital throughout the events – good job we have a great café and wonderful catering stalls to choose from!

5. The weather

We all know it’s not something we can control, but it can make or break an event. Sadly this year’s classic car show was a victim of (quite a lot of) rain. Cars + grassy field + lots of rain = slip-sloppy-miserableness. Still, we were incredibly grateful to those who showed up, and as always we had the Hampshire and Berkshire 4x4 Response guys on hand to rescue anyone stuck in the mud, which was a much better option than me and my determined pushing – never one to be deterred by the scale of a challenge, whilst ‘helping’ to push one of the stuck cars out of a sticky (read ‘slippery’) situation, I too found myself with zero traction and swiftly toppled face-first in the mud pool.

Ironically, the weather was so lovely the next day that I could hang my freshly washed (previously mud covered) Popham clothes on the line to dry…

6. The dream team

It’s the whole team at Popham that makes our events possible, and many of this team are volunteers who selflessly give up their time to ensure our success. Mike and I are eternally grateful for their help – we couldn’t do it without them!

LAA Grass Roots Fly-in returns to Popham Airfield

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 05:28:08 GMT

Friday 18th to Sunday 20th August 2023

The LAA is returning to the greengrass of Popham Aerodrome in Hampshire for a repeat of its “Grass Roots Fly In”from 18th to 20th August 2023. The Fly-In will again onone hand take the Associate back to its traditional roots, while continuing to offer the first chance to see some of the latest aircraft and products in therecreational aviation market.

What was particularly notable about the 2022 Popham event was itssociality. Both LAA members and exhibitors alike commented on its relaxed andfriendly atmosphere, with post-event comments such as “It’s a greatreunion as well as a fly-in–cum trade show” and “super friendly, the eventalways had a good vibe”.

A joint venture with PophamAerodrome, the LAA Grass Roots Fly In will develop its strengths as a socialevent bringing flyers from around the UK and Europe to meet fellow enthusiasts.The grass runways at Popham and the airfield’s famed rural ambience will meanthat the event will focus on the fly-in and social element as much as on alarge exhibition campus. The earlier mid-August date will also mean longerevenings, allowing more scope for flyers from further afield and hopefully,milder conditions for those who choose to ‘camp under the wing’.

Said LAA CEO designate SimonTilling: “The LAA Grass Roots Fly In was a great success last year, with over 3,000 visitors, more than 30exhibitors and a total of 350 visiting aircraft through the weekend. It isa different event to the past, larger scale LAA Rallies and we’re working onplans for the continuation of a larger scale LAA event in the future. For thisyear, we’re looking forward to another great, social and fun, LAA fly in”.

The UK Light AircraftAssociation is Britain’s biggest powered sport flying organisation with over 7,600members, who fly over 2,700 different aircraft ranging from vintagerestorations to state-of-the-art homebuilt types. The Association’s motto is‘Affordable Flying For Fun’.

To book tickets and for further details please visit www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk

Congratulations to @MackSolo, the youngest person to fly solo around the world

Sat, 27 Aug 2022 13:16:52 GMT

We were delighted to welcome Mack Rutherford to Popham Airfield as he stopped off on his round-the-world challenge on Sunday 21st August 2022. Mack took time out of his schedule to mean fans young and old at the Popham Model Show.

Airfield Manager Mike Pearson commented, " It was the perfect end to a fantastic Model Show, and we were delighted to see so many people stay to welcome Mack to the airfield. It's an incredible challenge that this young man is undertaking, and he is an inspiration to young and old alike. We are incredibly proud that he took his first ever flying lesson right here at Popham Airfield."

Since landing at the airfield, he has gone on to complete his journey, and he has now officially broken 2 Guinness World records ��:

1. Youngest person to fly around the world solo. Previous record holder: Travis Ludlow
2. Youngest person to fly around the world solo in an Ultra Light aircraft. Previous record holder: Flyzolo (Zara Rutherford)

You can learn more about Mack's adventures at macksolo.com.

Popham Cafe Under New Management

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 11:44:18 GMT

Open daily for breakfast, lunch and afternoon treats.

We are delighted to welcome a new team to the café at Popham. Experienced café owner Lisa Wright takes over with the café opening on 1st October 2020. Lisa is no stranger to running airfield cafe's having successfully run the café Zero 5 at the south Hampshire airfield at Lee on Solent.

A new menu is on offer featuring many traditional favourites as well as vegetarian choices. A range of home made cakes are on offer.

Members and non-members are welcome to the cafe.