There's a running joke in our house. We don't talk about Kemble. Mention it and Caz rolls her eyes, Jack grins into his tea, and I suddenly find something else to look at. Which is odd, because we have been to Kemble. Twice. So why the silence? Well. It's a good one, and enough time has passed that I think I'm finally allowed to tell it.
The facts
- ICAO: EGBP (IATA GBA), formerly RAF Kemble, now Cotswold Airport
- Location: Gloucestershire, about 4.5nm southwest of Cirencester, on a 532-acre site
- Elevation: 436ft AMSL
- Runway: 08/26 hard, with a parallel grass strip. Billed as the longest private runway in the UK, long enough to swallow airliners, so my C172 has no issues.
- Frequency: Cotswold Information 118.430 (AFIS, so information not instructions once you're airborne)
- Airspace: Class G, clear of controlled airspace
- PPR: required, via Smart PPR (https://smartppr.co.uk)
- Fuel: 100LL and Jet A1, payable on the day
- Café: AV8 Café & Restaurant by the tower, open to the public seven days, 9am to 5pm
- Visits: first in 2022, back again in 2025
School Trip
Back in the good old days of 2022 my flight school, Flight Training London, had a flyout planned to the classic french resort of Le Touquet. Flyouts are a lovely thing a good school does. A gaggle of aircraft, a shared destination, lunch somewhere you wouldn't quite have the nerve to go on your own, or somewhere a student stuck in the circuit simply cannot go. However on the day like all good flying days - it simply wasn't. The weather didn't want to go to France. Le Touquet was off. The fallback was Kemble.
Then the weather wobbled again. It was borderline for taking students, and a school has to make the safe call for the people it's responsible for, so the flyout was stood down. Sensible. No argument from me.
Except I had something most students don't. My own aircraft, Caz in the back with her stash of peanut based snacks, and Jack in the right-hand seat, who has rather more hours and a steadier nerve than I do. So we looked at the actuals, looked at each other, made a pilot decision and then went anyway.
Do as I say, not as I do
This did not go down brilliantly with the school hierarchy. The school's worry was a fair one. Students might see us heading off and wonder why they couldn't, and "because you're still learning and we're looking after you" is a hard thing to explain to a disappointed student who had to get up at 6am to be told no, especially when I was planning to plaster such a fine trip all over the internet.
So we quietly trekked over to Kemble, literally 'under the radar', taxied in, and parked up. And then found one of the school's own PA28s parked up next to us, with one of their instructors and one of their students. The cake was too much of a draw I suppose. but it did appear that the flyout that was too marginal to run had, it turned out, partly run anyway. I have never laughed so hard while trying to look innocent. (I was later told that it was an IR(R) 'training' flight. I still think it was the cake.)
Anyway So that's why we don't talk about Kemble. I was asked at the time to keep it quiet, which was fair enough, and I did. Years on, it's softened into the family joke it deserves to be. Caz says it with a straight face. Jack says it with a grin. Nobody believes either of them.
What is a Kemble?
Now, the airfield itself, because it's a cracker and deserves more than being the setting for a domestic.
Kemble is steeped in history. Originally built as RAF Kemble in the 1930s, it was home to the Red Arrows until 1983, and there's still a little red Gnat outside the cafe standing guard to remind you.
Kemble is where retired airliners come to be stored and broken up. So you taxi past rows of jets in various states of undress, some whole, some very much not. From the air on the way in it's even better, a great line of tails parked nose to tail along the apron, wings and engines and nose cones laid out around them like a model kit somebody tipped onto the carpet. Pootling past all that in a little single does something strange to your sense of scale.
There's a British Airways 747 on the site too, the Negus, in the old retro colours, kept now as an events venue. Seeing a jumbo parked up by the tower while you're tying down a Cessna is one of those Kemble things you don't quite get anywhere else.
Then there's the AV8, right by the tower with a grandstand view of the runway. It is gloriously aviation. Bits of aircraft hanging from the ceiling, a painted Gromit keeping an eye on the room, and wedges of cake sitting under classic glass domes like exhibits in a museum. The difference is you can eat these ones, subject of course to payment. There is also a screen on the wall showing arrivals and departures, very proper airport, and there's a particular daft joy in spotting your own little 172 listed up there alongside everything else.
I had the ham, egg and chips. Look, you need something more substantial than a bacon roll when you've trekked across half of the UK, dodged all the weather, and landed next to a 747. The bacon roll can wait for a shorter trip.
Caz's Loo Review
It was a toilet. It had a door. It was cleanish. Nothing special.
Caz's score: 4
I'm told this is not a glowing review, but I'm also not sure what would earn full marks. Heated seats? Perfumed loo roll? The little folded triangle they do in hotels? I'll have to ask her.
Worth the trip? 4/5. Yes as I didn't have to test my schoolboy GCSE French. It lost a mark as the Negus was closed. Note to self check next time. Note to future self - check again as when we popped in in 2025 with Ed, it was closed again.
Caz says she liked the interesting aircraft, but it did have the feel of an aircraft graveyard.
And then we went back.
We returned in 2025, which rather defeats the whole "we don't talk about Kemble" thing. Different season, same grin. There's a photo of me on the apron in a hi-vis, thumbs up, a parked 747 over my shoulder, looking far too pleased with myself. That's Kemble in one shot. And the Negus was closed again.
But officially we still don't talk about Kemble. Lets hope that FTL are still talking to me after this review, as we do now, it seems, appear to be talking about Kemble.
For more about Kemble, follow cotswoldairport.com
