Since 1915, Fairey Aviation had been flight testing aircraft at Northolt Aerodrome. The aircraft were designed and manufactured at the Fairey factory in North Hyde Road, Hayes.

In 1928 the Air Ministry gave it notice to cease using Northolt. Fairey’s chief test pilot, Norman Macmillan, recalled an earlier forced landing and take-off at Heath Row in 1925. He remembered the flatness of the land, and recommended the area as suitable for an aerodrome.

Macmillan flew aerial surveys of the site - then used for market gardening.

Fairey Aviation moved here on 4 March 1929 after being evicted from Northolt Airport. The company bought 71 acres to establish an airfield for flight testing. Later purchases gradually enlarged the aerodrome to about 240 acres.

The aerodrome was some three miles by road from Hayes and it was declared operational in June 1930. That year, a hangar was built.

In time it was called the Great West Aerodrome.

In 1943, the Air Ministry secretly developed plans to requisition the airfield under the Defence of the Realm Act (1939). The plans were stated to suit the needs of long-range bombers but they were actually based on recommendations for a new international airport for London. The project was headed by Harold Balfour who kept the true nature of it hidden from parliament.

Fairey Aviation had, that year, bought 10 more acres of land to add to the airfield since it intended to relocate its production facilities from Hayes. The wartime legislation provided no obligation to pay compensation and indeed didn’t.

After eviction notices in May 1944, the new airfield was still under construction at the end of the war. By then, the plans had already changed from wartime military use to overt development into an international airport. On 1 January 1946, ownership of the site was transferred to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. On 31 May 1946, the newly named London Airport was officially opened for commercial operations.

Fairey’s 1930 hangar was used as Heathrow Airport’s fire station before being finally demolished.