Centenary of Powered Flight
On Monday, 8th December, Manchester Friends of the Earth and poet Michael Gibson staged a funeral for the victims of flight at Manchester cathedral, where Manchester Airport commemorated the 100th anniversary of powered flight.
Airport and City Council representatives listened to speeches praising aviation and its contribution to mankind's achievements but were confronted by Manchester FoE on their way out with reminders of the effects of aviation. which include noise, climate change emissions and loss of biodiversity.
Michael recited and sang his work, 'silver planes in which bluest skies', which was written in response to the plans for Manchester Airport's second runway and Manchester FoE gave out an 'alternative history of flight', stressing the environmental and social impacts of the industry.
The following week was a jumbo period for aviation news. On Tuesday the Government white paper on the aviation industry was published, setting out policy for the next 30 years. BBC GMR were at Michael Gibson's house at 7am talking to him about his experiences living under the flight path.
At 5pm, Graeme was on GMR drive time giving his response to the white paper. Unsurprisingly he was not impressed that it cleared the way for Manchester Airport to have roughly the same number of flights as Heathrow does now within 30 years, the extra runways proposed for Birmingham and the South East or the fact that the Government had ignored the arguments of environmentalists and its own advisors and done nothing to confront the inappropriate subsidy of the aviation industry.
On Wednesday 17th December, which marked the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered flight, we gave out our 'alternative history of flight' in the City Centre.
View our "Alternative
History of Flight" (PDF, 630 KB)
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