--- title: Hard Runway Airfield Reviews UK | Whiskey Alpha Pilot - Whiskey Alpha Pilot description: Reviews of UK hard-runway airfields I've flown into as pilot in command. Honest takes on the welcome, the cafe and the experience, surface aside. canonical_url: https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/airfield-reviews/hard-runways language: en-GB date: 2026-04-30T14:33:29Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/airfield-reviews/hard-runways. markdown-tokens: 991 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/airfield-reviews/hard-runways. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. My reviews and experiences of visiting airfields with hard runways. Not hard as in difficult to land on, but hard as in tarmac or concrete. Airfield runways may be of variable quality. Always check the AIP and the airfield itself for details before visiting. ![Cessna 172 G-DCKK parked on the ramp at Beccles Aerodrome EGSM](https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/images/airfields/beccles-egsm/IMG_0941.jpeg) A delightful little airfield in Suffolk with a good reputation for food, helicopters and parachuting. Air/Ground radio, friendly atmosphere, and on this visit, my shortest runway to date. The runway is normally a tarmac and grass mixture, around 450m of concrete with a 150m grass extension, but on the day we went the grass section was closed. Tarmac only. Less than 500m of it, apparently. That was the airfield's own answer when I rang to ask, by the way. "It is less than 500m." Very helpful. Thanks for that. [ Read more: Airfield Review :: Beccles EGSM ](https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/airfield-reviews/beccles-egsm) ![Southend Airport Terminal Building ](https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/images/airfields/southend-egmc/Southend_Airport_terminal_building_02.jpg) Southend means different things to different people. To half of Essex it's the seafront and the world's longest pleasure pier, a mile and a third of Victorian ironwork marching out into the estuary. To the budget airline crowd it was a cheap way out of the country, an airport that cheerfully bills itself as "London Southend" despite sitting a good forty-odd miles from anything most people would call London. Then again, so is Heathrow, and nobody blinks at that. From a pilot's seat, and especially a student pilot's seat training out of Elstree, "London airport" mostly means one thing anyway. Controlled airspace, and lots of it. [ Read more: Airfield Review :: London Southend EGMC ](https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/airfield-reviews/southend-egmc) ![A cessna G-GCKK parked on the ramp at an airfield](https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/images/images/110523%20Earls%20Colne/IMG_1917.jpeg) GDCKK parked at Earles Colne There is a dog at Earls Colne. His name is Zak. **Do not feed Zak.** There are signs. There is staff guidance. There is, I suspect, a long and grumpy history. More on him below. The other thing worth knowing before you fly in is that the tarmac strip is only 10 metres wide, which plays a properly nasty trick on your eyes the first time you fly an approach to it. More on that below too. Earls Colne in May 2023, with Jack in the right-hand seat. Lovely day out. [ Read more: Airfield Review :: Earls Colne EGSR ](https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/airfield-reviews/earls-colne-egsr) ![Elstree Airfield from the air showing the hangars and main runway](https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/images/headers/IMG_0618.jpeg) Elstree Airfield EGTR from the air Welcome to Elstree. My Home. It's quirky, busy and expensive. It has the worlds most complex circuit which flips daily, horrible noise abatement rules, militant walkers, pylons on the approach, movie starts on the other and footpaths in stupid places. but it is my home and I love it. [ Read more: Airfield Review :: Elstree EGTR ](https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/airfield-reviews/elstree-egtr)