§ 4. Mr. A. Robertsasked the Minister of Aviation if he will state the number of non-operational days from 1st October, 1962, to 1st February, 1963, due to weather conditions at the following airports, namely, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Leeds/Bradford and Birmingham.
§ Mr. MartenApart from London these airports are municipally owned. I am, however, informed that the number of days on which no operations were possible, were—Manchester, nil; Liverpool, one; Leeds/Bradford, four; Birmingham, one.
London, as the hon. Gentleman knows, has three airports, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, and there was no complete day on which all three were unusable at the same time. Heathrow had no commercial movement on three days, due to fog. There were no complete closures at either Gatwick or Stansted.
§ Mr. RobertsWhat scientific progress is being made to overcome the foul weather pest?
§ Mr. MartenI think that great progress is being made in the development of blind landing equipment. The hon. Member may remember that during the recent very foggy period an aircraft from the Blind Landing Experimental Unit made six perfectly good blind landings at London Airport when visibility was down to about 50 yards. I think that we would all wish to acknowledge the great credit that is due to that Unit for producing this wonderful equipment.