No. 226 Operational Conversion Unit was a
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
Operational Conversion Unit which was active between 1946 and 1991.
Operational history
It was first formed on 15 August 1946 at
RAF Molesworth
Royal Air Force Molesworth or more simply RAF Molesworth is a Royal Air Force station located near Molesworth, Cambridgeshire, England with a history dating back to 1917.
Its runway and flight line facilities were closed in 1973 and demolished ...
under
No. 11 Group of
Fighter Command
RAF Fighter Command was one of the commands of the Royal Air Force. It was formed in 1936 to allow more specialised control of fighter aircraft. It served throughout the Second World War. It earned near-immortal fame during the Battle of Britai ...
by redesignation of No. 1335 Conversion Unit with the mission of training fighter pilots. The unit operated a variety of aircraft, as befitted its general fighter pilot training mission. Those aircraft included the
Gloster Meteor
The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' only jet aircraft to engage in combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneere ...
,
Hawker Tempest
The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft that was primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the ''Typhoon II'', was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to a ...
,
de Havilland Hornet and
de Havilland Vampire
The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland, de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter to be operated by the Royal Air Force, RAF, after the Gloster Meteor, and ...
.
226 OCU then relocated to
RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk on 10 October 1946, training pilots for day fighter and fighter-reconnaissance roles consisting of four flights of de Havilland Hornet F.1, Hawker Tempest II, de Havilland Vampire FB.1 and Gloster Meteor F.3 and F.4. Later Meteor two seat Mk VIII trainers were added. Students trained on only one type during the course and did not fly other aircraft other than the
Avro Anson
The Avro Anson is a British twin-engined, multi-role aircraft built by the aircraft manufacturer Avro. Large numbers of the type served in a variety of roles for the Royal Air Force (RAF), Fleet Air Arm (FAA), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) ...
I for twin engine familiarisation and the squadron
North American Harvard I. At that time it was directed from Fighter Command Headquarters, Bentley Priory, via 11 Fighter Group at
Hillingdon
Hillingdon is an area of Uxbridge within the London Borough of Hillingdon, centred 14.2 miles (22.8 km) west of Charing Cross. It was an ancient parish in Middlesex that included the market town of Uxbridge. During the 1920s the civil ...
.
On 31 August 1949 220 OCU moved to
RAF Driffield
Royal Air Force Driffield or RAF Driffield is a former Royal Air Force station in the East Riding of Yorkshire, in England. It lies about south-west of Driffield and north-west of Beverley. It is now operated by the Defence Infrastructure Or ...
in Yorkshire where it disbanded for the first time by being redesignated as No. 203 Advanced Flying School.
The following month, On 1 September 1949, the unit was resurrected at
RAF Stradishall and No. 226 OCU's service began a new chapter. In
No. 12 Group, again in Fighter Command, the unit had the more specific mission of training Meteor pilots. This lasted until 3 June 1955 when the unit was disbanded for a second time.
Continuing the tradition of training fighter pilots, the OCU reformed on 1 June 1963 at
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Middleton St George was a Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) RAF Bomber Command, Bomber Command station during World War II. It was located in County Durham, five miles east of Darlington, England. The station's mot ...
, flying the
English Electric Lightning
The English Electric Lightning is a British fighter aircraft that served as an interceptor during the 1960s, the 1970s and into the late 1980s. It was capable of a top speed of above Mach 2. The Lightning was designed, developed, and manufa ...
with the merging of the Lightning Conversion Squadron and the Fighter Command Instrument Rating Squadron. It moved to
RAF Coltishall
Royal Air Force Coltishall, more commonly known as RAF Coltishall , is a former Royal Air Force station located North-North-East of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk, East Anglia, which operated from 1938 to 2006.
It was a fighter air ...
in April 1964. During 1968 and 1969, the OCU was involved in the training of pilots of the
Royal Saudi Air Force
The Royal Saudi Air Force ( ar, الْقُوَّاتُ الْجَوِّيَّةُ الْمَلَكِيَّةْ ٱلسُّعُوْدِيَّة, Al-Quwwat Al-Jawiyah Al-Malakiyah as-Su’udiyah) (RSAF) is the Military aviation, aviation branch o ...
in flying their newly acquired Lightnings. On 30 September 1974, it was disbanded at RAF Coltishall, and the OCU's association with fighters came to an end.
The next area where 226 OCU saw service was
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
. Shifting to strike aircraft, 226 OCU reformed at
RAF Lossiemouth
Royal Air Force Lossiemouth or more commonly RAF Lossiemouth is a military airfield located on the western edge of the town of Lossiemouth in Moray, north-east Scotland.
Lossiemouth is one of the largest and busiest fast-jet stations in the ...
the day after disbandment from the Jaguar Conversion Unit, originally established in June 1974. Its peacetime role was training pilots for the
SEPECAT Jaguar
The SEPECAT Jaguar is an Anglo-French jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. It is still in service with the Indian Air Force.
Originally ...
. Less well known was 226 OCU's wartime emergency role as a '
shadow squadron' or reserve unit made up principally of the squadron's instructors. From 1975 until 1991 the unit's wartime role was as an operational squadron in the front line assigned to
Supreme Allied Commander Europe
The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is the commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Allied Command Operations (ACO) and head of ACO's headquarters, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). The commander i ...
(SACEUR) with twelve Jaguar aircraft, eight
WE.177 nuclear bombs, and a variety of conventional weapons. In a high-intensity European war the unit's role was to support land forces on the Continent, first with conventional weapons and secondly with tactical nuclear weapons as required, should a conflict escalate to that stage. The apparent mismatch between aircraft numbers and nuclear bombs was a consequence of RAF staff planners concluding that there would be one-third attrition of aircraft in an early conventional phase, leaving the remaining survivors numerically strong enough to deliver the unit's entire stockpile of eight nuclear bombs.
With the post-
Cold War drawdown of the RAF the OCU fell victim to defence cuts in 1991 and was disbanded for the last time by redesignation to
No. 16 (Reserve) Squadron on 11 September 1991, although the redesignated unit continued with both its peacetime and wartime roles exactly as before, in its new guise as No. 16 (Reserve) Squadron until retirement of the WE.177 weapon.
RAF nuclear front line Order-of-Battle 1994
/ref>
See also
* List of conversion units of the Royal Air Force
Conversion units and operational conversion units (OCUs) were training units of the Royal Air Force (RAF).
History
With the introduction of new heavy bombers, the four-engined Short Stirling, Avro Lancaster, and Handley Page Halifax, the Roy ...
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
External links
226 OCU at RAF Web
{{RAF Conversion units
Conversion units of the Royal Air Force
Fighter aircraft units and formations of the Royal Air Force
Military units and formations established in 1946
1946 establishments in the United Kingdom