1920s
Newcastle Aero Club was founded in 1925 with the establishment of an airfield in Cramlington to the north of Newcastle. When Newcastle Airport opened in Woolsington ten years later, the Aero Club relocated to its current site. It boasts the enviable record of being the oldest flying club in the country.
1930s
Newcastle Airport was opened on 26 July 1935 by Secretary of State for Air, Sir Phillip Cunliffe-Lister. The airport cost £35,000 to build and consisted of a grass runway, clubhouse, hanger, workshops and a garage. The runway lights consisted of a series of empty oil drums that could be filled with oil rags and lit in advance of an approaching aircraft!
The first scheduled service calling at Newcastle Airport was a flight between Croydon and Perth, Scotland, operated by North Eastern Airways using an 8-seater Airspeed Envoy aircraft.
