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RESPONSE TO FRED NORONHA'S OF OCT 22 Very many thanks for your encouraging words. It seems like the pre-Liberation usage of the airport which you are focusing on is still an open question. My (limited) information is simply that it was an "airfield". Hope some respected historians in our midst will be able to shed more light on this important question. Regarding the pressure for civilian flights, while rummaging through the file I learned that the Navy first allocated 15 acres of airport land for civilian use in 1966 i.e. within 4 years of occupation. Probably this was in response to pressure for civilian flights. Subsequent transfers amounting to 10 acres were spread over a 32 year period i.e. till 1998. However, until the late 1980s there were only two civilian (IA?) flights per day -- to Mumbai and Kochi. Interestingly both these are important naval stations! So the mid-80s charters from Germany/UK may have expanded the civilian air route to Goa. Interestingly they seemed to follow in the wake of CHOGM in 1983 which, in turn, may have been the fall out of the "hippie" discovery of Goa in the late 1960s. During the inter-regnum, the "Bombay to Goa" overland scenario may have prevailed since the Konkan Railway began only in the late 80s early 90s. The relatively recent activity of the South Goa hoteliers lobby may have been primarily the result of the plan to build a new airport at Mopa. This would seem to have foreshadowed the pattern in Kochi where the civilian airport was shifted out of the naval base (due perhaps to runway limitations) to a new greenfield site. I personally feel this should not be allowed to happen in Dabolim. But then we have the irresistible force vs immovable object scenario to envisage.