Peter Vallance was a friend  I met through amateur radio. We were both members of the Crawley Amateur Radio Club. Peter had land adjoining Gatwick Airport on which he ran a small 'business park'. He was fervently interested in aircraft, I think he was active in WW2. He still had a pilots licence. One day someone offered him an old hellicopter.  He asked the Council if he could set it up at the entrance to his business park and they had no objection.

For the next 25 years he amassed around 25 aircraft and spent his life trying to get permission to set up an aviation museum. There were constant battles with the council, most of which he lost and slowly some of the aircraft had to go. Peter died iin 2013.

The collection was run as a museum in appalling sheds but the council has agreed they can rebuild one to use as a museum.

Update 2019, The museum now has a new building housing most of the remaining aircraft and is well worth a visit.

In the early years Peter had an 'Open Day' every year in conjunction with the 'Southern Counties Historic Vehicle Preservation Trust' - a local group of historic vehicle enthuiasts.

We ran an amateur radio special event station on the day to promote Peter's dreams of a museum and amateur radio.

I made use of the mast on my Caravelle to take lots of shots over the years. They were mainly on the OM2 on film which has sadly deteroiated over the years. I also took my earliest digital photos here, in 1998 had an Olympus C1400, one of the earliest single lens reflex cameras taking 1.4 mega pixel images that were amazing for that time.

Earlier photos go back to the late 80's.