THE Impartial Explorer has never properly grown up and is in absolute awe of trains, ships and planes – all former childhood toys!

But most of all, aeroplanes have hogged my life-long adulation.

I’ve no idea how (or if) it was permitted, but back in the mid-1960s, the keen planespotter father of a schoolfriend from Belfast drove us both, in his family car, unauthorised and unchallenged, onto the runaway at Sydenham and casually parked beneath the wing of an iconic Short Brothers Belfast C.1. Heavy-Lift Turboprop freighter.

Technically far ahead of its competitors, the sturdily sleek Belfast-built plane was the British military’s largest aircraft, and was first to be fitted with full ‘blind landing’ automatic system equipment.

I stood in the shadow of its 50-metre wingspan, marvelling at the quartet of immensely powerful Rolls-Royce turboprop engines.

This was aviation history, close-up, and it was a privilege to be there, with or without permission!

1938 official opening

I’ve been perusing a copy of the souvenir programme for the 1938 official opening of the airport.

“I think it’s rather fun,” wrote Robin Masefield, the County Down author and historian who loaned it to me, adding: “I got it from my Helen’s Bay friend, Chris McFerran – a little bit of history that is ripe for sharing.”

Now called the George Best Belfast City Airport, the Belfast Harbour Airport was officially opened by Mrs. Chamberlain, wife of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, on Wednesday, March 16, 1938.

Just over a decade later, in a single-seater plane high above the runway, 23-year-old American aerobatic pilot Betty Skelton performed a breathtaking display of aerial acrobatics including a ‘hammerhead’, a ‘triple snap roll’ and an ‘outside loop’.

Thrice aerobatic women’s flying champion, Skelton was the star attraction in an air pageant at the airport on Saturday, July 30, 1949, but the printed programme for its 1938 opening outlined the Harbour Airport’s very first air show, which was even more sensational!

The 12-page souvenir programme, stamped with the distinctive seal of airport owners – The Belfast Harbour Commissioners – outlines the exuberant series of RAF air displays and fly-pasts that punctuated the historic occasion.

Along with photographs, maps and a full description, with specifications, of the new airport, the programme also includes a timetable of speeches and opening events, along with the full list of VIPs and Harbour Commissioners attending.

Refreshments were “served in the hanger” throughout the proceedings, and all the airport buildings were “open for inspection by guests attending the ceremony”.

Unlike my own visit three decades later, guests were “kindly requested not to encroach on the landing area” – a stark warning heavily underlined in the programme.

The opening ceremonials started and ended with the national anthem, with further musical contributions from Miss Macie McCrea and her orchestra, including ‘Silver Wings’ and ‘The Londonderry Air’.

Mrs. Chamberlain declared the airport open, and was presented with “a gift of Ulster linen” on behalf of the Harbour Commissioners before the invited guests, VIPs and Harbour Commissioners (and probably most of East Belfast) watched the air show.

The spectacular aerial displays are described on pages four and five of the programme.

“Squadrons of the Royal Air Force will take off from the airport and fly past in squadron formations as follows:

“A flight of six Bristol Blenheims from No. 139 Squadron, commanded by Squadron-Leader Dickens.

“A flight of six Fairey Battles from No. 52 Squadron, commanded by Squadron-Leader Bennett.

“No. 502 (Ulster) (Bomber) Squadron, commanded by Squadron-Leader L. R. Briggs.”

The afternoon’s airborne activities included inaugural flights of the first passenger services from Belfast to Glasgow and the Isle of Man.

A De Haviland four-engined, 10-seater aircraft (DH.86 type) took off bound for Glasgow, courtesy of Railway Air Services, Ltd., and the programme included details of the service to the Isle of Man “operated by Isle-of-Man Air Services, Ltd., with either a DH.86 (four-engined 10-seater) or a DH.89 (two-engined eight-seater) machine.”

The printed programme explains how important the Harbour Airport was to Belfast and Northern Ireland, and outlines future plans.

“Extension of the landing surface is rapidly proceeding and runways 1,000 yards in length will be available in every direction, together with one of 1,500 yards in the direction of the prevailing wind (South West - North West).

“In order to meet the requirements of the larger aeroplanes of the future, an additional tract of foreshore containing 450 acres has been acquired by the Harbour Commissioners for reclamation, and this will enable the runways to be widened and extended considerably.”

The programme’s last page ends, appropriately, on a high: “Belfast will then enjoy aviation facilities of a standard which it will be difficult to equal at any city in the British Isles.”s.”