The second week of March has always attracted thousands of race goers to Prestbury Park for The Jockey Club’s Cheltenham Festival. With horses comes money, with money comes helicopters and for many years Cheltenham has had a licensed heliport which is primarily used for the March meeting, but available to race goers all year round.
Whilst still not as busy as the glory years of the 90’s and early 00’s this year’s meet still attracted a vast number of airframes over the four days, with 57 aircraft attending the Friday alone. All the major charter operators were represented with several private aircraft thrown into the mix too. For the course of the four days the heliport, which is registered with the International Civil Aviation Organization, is managed as it has been for several years by Nick Cox and his team of professionals from Helipad who provide Air Traffic Service, Rescue and Firefighting Service, Passenger Handling, Fuel and for the first time this year an aircraft valet service.
With the helipad opening at 1030hrs local the area is a hive of constant noise and activity, with most aircraft operating multiple flights from surrounding hotels and stately homes as well as further afield from the likes of Manchester Barton Heliport and London Battersea Heliport, although all aircraft are required to be shut down by the time of the first race. To ease air traffic control, both in the locality and en route, each aircraft is issued its own “Jockey” callsign for the entirety of the meet, the distinctive callsign solely used by Helipad at their horserace meets enables ATC en route to easily determine this is aircraft is flying to or from Cheltenham, whilst locally it reduces the amount of information needed to be passed to the controller on an already saturated frequency.
Biggin Hill based Castle Air provided the largest contingent of aircraft over the course of the four days with two AgustaWestland AW139s and seven Agusta A.109s ferrying passengers into the event from several private locations throughout southern England. GB Helicopters also had a large presence with all their twin aircraft being present at the helipad from their London-Stansted based Eurocopter EC155 B1 to the Yorkshire based Bell 429 Global Ranger and four Eurocopter AS355 N Ecureuil 2s from their Knutsford based headquarters. A trio of Airbus H145s were the new kids on the block, with Oxford based Capital Air Services Ltd investing in the fleet expansion over the winter months. Previously Capital have relied on their trusty pair of Eurocopter EC135 T2+s G-HOLM and G-SENS as well as routinely chartering in Nova Aerospace Ltd’s Eurocopter EC135 T1 G-NSYS. This year the H145s certainly caught the attention of many of the spotters present. Also grabbing the photographer’s attention was Flexjets Sikorsky S-76C; I must admit I didn’t think in 2024 operators would be importing S-76s into the UK, but Flexjet seem to be making it work with G-FXVA being extremely busy all week. Cheltenham has always attracted one or two unusual oddities with previous years aircraft such as Gazelles and Enstroms having visited. This year a pair of American registered MD Helicopters MD 902 Explorers visited, along with a solo MD Helicopters MD-500E. Neither aircraft type has been that widely used in the UK corporate/charter scene.
One thing that Helipad, and in particular Cheltenham, is also known for is their engagement with the local spotting/photography community there aren’t many event organisers or company CEOs who would allow a large gathering of enthusiasts at such a high-profile corporate event, let alone find the time to engage with them during such a busy schedule. A walk around of the static park once the racing has commenced is organised each day in aid of Midlands Air Ambulance. Cheltenham festival has certainly become a must attend event for me, not only for the variety and quantity of the airframes but also for the photographic opportunities and warm friendly atmosphere.
South West Aviation Photographers would like to thank all at Helicopter & Aviation Services Ltd for making this article possible.
Report by Matt Sudol
© South West Aviation Photographers 2024