Tournai (Maubray)  EBTY

Date of Visit = June 1996, August 1999

Pilot: = Chris Belton

e-mail = chris@yarboo.freeserve.co.uk

Field Report = Within easy reach of the UK for a day trip (just NE of Lille) it is set in the middle of an ancient forest belonging to a prince, who holds a music festival nearby at his chateau in August each year.

It's listed in the Bottlang Airfield Manual and is PPR (on + 32 770 277 or + 32 771 652, which is much simpler if you speak French, or Flemish if your prefer). You should be able to fly there direct, it's even listed as a customs field (also PPR, officially 48 hrs). There's nothing plush about it - the prince has nothing to do with it. Eddie and Paulette run a bar on the airfield, which is used by a small flying club and for gliding (though there's often nobody there midweek during the day).

Its 750m runway gets boggy in winter or very bad weather (another reason for the PPR). It was built from the clay excavated to create a boating lake a few miles down the road. They had to import grass seed from Finland because nothing else would grow on it.

It's a bit basic, with water from a well (90 ft deep, which they dug themselves), but drinking water is from Eddie in the bar. You can camp or do what the hell you like, they used to have a bicycle they'd lend you to ride through the forest to the nearest village shop, past old beech trees adorned with 1st World War graffitti. My passenger camped on the edge of the airfield and found a wild boar outside his tent in the early morning. If you really must stay in a town, you're not far from Tournai. If you want to see something really different, and you're that way inclined, they hold cock-fights twice a week in a village a few miles SW of the airfield!

If your idea of a day-trip to the continent is breakfast at Le Touquet, then perhaps its not for you. But if you want to visit an authentic piece of rural Belgium within very easy reach, you need look no further. Just don't all go at once, it'd spoil it!

In theory there's fuel (if there's someone there). We paid no landing fee. They accept Belgian and French money.