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RAF Bottisham
Royal Air Force Bottisham or more simply RAF Bottisham is a former Royal Air Force station located east of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. History RAF Fighter Command use RAF Bottisham opened in March 1940 and was first used by bomb-armed de Havilland Tiger Moths transferred from No. 22 Elementary Flying Training School RAF (EFTS) to be prepared for possible anti-invasion duties. From October 1940 the airfield was used by 22 EFTS Tiger Moths as a Relief Landing Ground until 1941. With the departure of the Tiger Moths, Bottisham was transferred to 241 Sqn Army Co-operation Command with Westland Lysanders, Curtiss Tomahawks, North American Mustang Mk 1's, moved to Ayr. From 15 June 1942, the airfield was used by No. 652 Squadron RAF and No. 168 Squadron RAF. A number of other Royal Air Force squadrons used the airfield before it was turned over to the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF): * No. 2 Squadron RAF between 31 January 1943 and 19 March 1943 with detachm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensign Of The Royal Air Force
An ensign is the national flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality. The ensign is the largest flag, generally flown at the stern (rear) of the ship while in port. The naval ensign (also known as war ensign), used on warships, may be different from the civil ensign (merchant ships) or the yacht ensign (recreational boats). Large versions of naval ensigns called battle ensigns are used when a warship goes into battle. The ensign differs from the jack, which is flown from a jackstaff at the bow of a vessel. In its widest sense, an ensign is just a flag or other standard. The European military rank of ensign, once responsible for bearing a unit's standard (whether national or regimental), derives from it (in the cavalry, the equivalent rank was cornet, named after a type of flag). Ensigns, such as the ancient Roman ensigns in the Arch of Constantine, are not always flags. National ensigns In nautical use, the ensign is flown on a ship or boat to indicate its organizati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Prestwick
) , type = Military air traffic control centre , coordinates = , gridref = , image_map = , image_mapsize = , image_map_alt = , image_map_caption = , pushpin_map = Scotland South Ayrshire#UK , pushpin_map_caption = Location within South Ayrshire , pushpin_label = RAF Prestwick , pushpin_label_position = , ownership = Ministry of Defence , operator = Royal Air Force , controlledby = , open_to_public = , site_other_label = , site_other = , site_area = , code = PW , built = , used = February 1936 – , builder = , materials = , height = , length = , fate = Operations transferred to RAF (U) Swanwick. , condition = Closed , battles = European theatre of World War II Cold War , events = , past_commanders = Wing Commander Bruce Duncan (final station commander) , garrison = , occupants = , footnotes = , IATA = , ICAO = , FAA = , TC = , LID = , GPS = , WMO = , elevation = , r1-number = 00/00 , r1-length = , r1-sur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
400 Tactical Helicopter Squadron
400 "City of Toronto" Tactical Helicopter and Training Squadron is part of 1 Wing, and as such a lodger unit of Canadian Forces Base Borden. The squadron operates the CH-146 Griffon. History The squadron was formed as No. 10 Army Co-Operation Squadron at Toronto, Ontario on 5 October 1932, when it flew from the Trethewey Farm Airfield ( De Lesseps Field) from 1934 to 1939. On 15 November 1937, it was renumbered No. 110 "City of Toronto" Army Co-Operation Squadron. When the squadron was called out on active service 3 September 1939, it first deployed to CFB Rockcliffe (now Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport), Ottawa, Ontario for conversion to the Westland Lysander aircraft. The new commanding officer (CO) at that time was S/L Wilbur Dennison Van Vliet, an experienced peacetime flier. By early February 1940, the squadron was ready to depart to the UK, travelling by rail to Halifax and then by steamship across the Atlantic on 15 February. The squadron was the first Royal Canadian Air Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Coleby Grange
Royal Air Force Coleby Grange or more simply RAF Coleby Grange was a Royal Air Force satellite station situated alongside the western edge of the A15 on open heathland between the villages of Coleby and Nocton Heath and lying due south of the county town Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England. Opened in 1939 and operated as a fighter and night fighter airfield during the Second World War, occupied at various times by UK, US, Canadian and Polish fighter squadrons, the station briefly switched to a training role post-war before being placed on a care and maintenance basis. Reopened in 1959 as an RAF Bomber Command Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launch facility and placed on a high DEFCON 2 launch alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the station was finally closed and decommissioned in 1963. The site has been returned to agricultural use and now has little evidence of its former use, other than several lengths of perimeter track and the original air traffic control towe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supermarine Spitfire
The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allies of World War II, Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Griffon engined Mk 24 using several wing configurations and guns. It was the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the war. The Spitfire remains popular among enthusiasts; around List of surviving Supermarine Spitfires, 70 remain airworthy, and many more are static exhibits in aviation museums throughout the world. The Spitfire was designed as a short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft by R. J. Mitchell, chief designer at Supermarine Aviation Works, which operated as a subsidiary of Vickers-Armstrong from 1928. Mitchell developed the Spitfire's distinctive elliptical wing with innovative sunken rivets (designed by Beverley Shenstone) to have the thinnest possible cross-section, achieving a poten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boulton Paul Defiant
The Boulton Paul Defiant is a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter", without any fixed forward-firing guns, also found in the Blackburn Roc of the Royal Navy. In combat, the Defiant was found to be effective at destroying bombers, the role it was designed for, but was vulnerable to the ''Luftwaffe''s more manoeuvrable, single-seat Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters. The Defiant had been designed to destroy unescorted bombers by means of beam or ventral attacks and therefore lacked forward-firing armament, that proved to be a great weakness in daylight combat with fighters. It did, however, find success when it was converted to a night fighter. It eventually equipped thirteen squadrons in this role,Cagill 2005, p. 44. compared to just two squadrons as a day-fighter, though this was mainly due to slow initial production. In mid-1942 it was replaced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by the Supermarine Spitfire during the Battle of Britain in 1940, but the Hurricane inflicted 60 percent of the losses sustained by the Luftwaffe in the campaign, and fought in all the major theatres of the Second World War. The Hurricane originated from discussions between RAF officials and aircraft designer Sir Sydney Camm about a proposed monoplane derivative of the Hawker Fury biplane in the early 1930s. Despite an institutional preference for biplanes and lack of interest by the Air Ministry, Hawker refined their monoplane proposal, incorporating several innovations which became critical to wartime fighter aircraft, including retractable landing gear and the more powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The Air Ministry ordered Hawk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Digby
Royal Air Force Digby otherwise known as RAF Digby is a Royal Air Force station located near Scopwick and south east of Lincoln, in Lincolnshire, England. The station is home to the tri-service Joint Service Signals Organisation, part of the Joint Forces Intelligence Group of Joint Forces Command. Other units include the RAF Aerial Erector School, No. 54 Signals Unit and No. 591 Signals Unit. Formerly an RAF training and fighter airfield, it is one of the country's older Royal Air Force stations, predated only by RAF Northolt, which is the oldest and predates the Royal Air Force by three years, having opened in 1915. Flying at Digby ceased in 1953. History First World War There are dated photographs that show that the airfield was already in use for flying training by Royal Naval pilots in the summer of 1917, although no documents supporting this have ever been found. The photographs show contemporary hangars, sheds and aircraft already in place around grassed runways and uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Snailwell
Royal Air Force Snailwell or more simply RAF Snailwell is a former Royal Air Force station located near to the village of Snailwell, Cambridgeshire, located north of Newmarket, Suffolk, England. History * USAAF 347th Fighter Squadron Operational Royal Air Force units and aircraft * No. 56 Squadron RAF (1942) - Hawker Typhoon IA and IB. * No. 137 Squadron RAF (1942) - Westland Whirlwind I. * No. 152 (Hyderabad) Squadron RAF (1941) - Supermarine Spitfire IIA. * No. 168 Squadron RAF (1942) - Curtiss Tomahawk II. * No. 170 Squadron RAF (1943) - North American Mustang I. * No. 181 Squadron RAF (1943) - Hawker Typhoon IB. * No. 182 Squadron RAF (1943) - Hawker Typhoon IB. * No. 183 (Gold Coast) Squadron RAF (1943) - Hawker Typhoon IB. * No. 184 Squadron RAF (1943) - Hawker Hurricane IV. * No. 247 (China-British) Squadron RAF (1943) - Hawker Typhoon IB. * No. 268 Squadron RAF (1941) - Curtiss Tomahawk IIA. * No. 268 Squadron RAF (1942) - North American Mustang I. * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Gravesend
Gravesend Airport, located south-east of Gravesend town centre, Kent and west of Rochester. It was operated from 1932 until 1956. It was initially a civil airfield, and became a Royal Air Force station known as RAF Gravesend during the Second World War, when it was under the control of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. It was the first RAF station to operate the North American Mustang III. The airport returned to civilian use at the conclusion of the Second World War, although it remained under the ownership of the Air Ministry until its closure in 1956. It is notable that a decision had to be made in 1954, by the Air Ministry, as to whether this civil airport should be retained and substantially enlarged, or the extensions east of Thong Lane be released for residential development. Kent County Council had made it clear that the land west of Thong Lane, was identified as a Civil Airport. Additionally, Kent County Council also informed the Air Ministry, that it wou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Fowlmere
Fowlmere Airfield is a small airfield located northeast of Royston, Hertfordshire and southwest of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. It was previously a Royal Air Force satellite station, RAF Fowlmere. History First World War Flying at Fowlmere originated in 1918 when the airfield was used by Royal Air Force * No. 124 Squadron RAF * No. 125 Squadron RAF * No. 126 Squadron RAF Flying cadets of the Air Service, United States Army were trained at Fowlmere by RAF instructors, prior to their deployment to the Western Front in France. After the First World War ended, the hangars were all demolished along with the assorted buildings by 1923. Second World War Royal Air Force use With the eruption of the Second World War, Fowlmere was intended to be a satellite for RAF Fighter Command at nearby RAF Duxford and was used by 19 Squadron with Supermarine Spitfires along with: * No. 2 Squadron RAF. * No. 15 Squadron RAF. * No. 16 Squadron RAF. * No. 21 Squadron RAF. * N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Duxford
Duxford Aerodrome is located south of Cambridge, within the civil parish of Duxford, Cambridgeshire, England and nearly west of the village. The airfield is owned by the Imperial War Museum (IWM) and is the site of the Imperial War Museum Duxford and the American Air Museum. Duxford Aerodrome has a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Ordinary Licence (Number P678) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction as authorised by the licensee (Cambridgeshire County Council). The aerodrome is not licensed for night use. History Early Use The area around Duxford was first used for military purposes as part of the Army Manoeuvres of 1912. It was not until October 1917 that construction was started on a more formal airfield. The new aerodrome was built as part of a pair with a sister station at Fowlmere. The hangars built in the period correspond to a Directorate of Fortifications and Works drawing number 332/17. The drawing was signed by Li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
