Stanley Farm and Inskip radio masts - geograph

RNAS Inskip, or as it was otherwise known HMS Nightjar, is a former

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

airfield near the village of

Inskip, Lancashire Inskip is a small village in the Fylde area of Lancashire, England. It is part of the civil parish of Inskip-with-Sowerby. The village is close to the former RNAS Inskip airfield, which still serves the armed forces as a tri-service communicati ...

, England at . In the 60's and 70's it was a Royal Navy transmitting station known as HMS INSKIP. It is now used as a military high frequency radio transmitting station.ow In the 1980s there were Marconi 50 kW transmitters operating in the (

Very Low Frequency Very low frequency or VLF is the ITU designation for radio frequencies (RF) in the range of 3–30 kHz, corresponding to wavelengths from 100 to 10 km, respectively. The band is also known as the myriameter band or myriameter wave ...

(VLF) band, transmitting

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one ...

to ships close to the United Kingdom. For long distance work, the shortwave bands were used, again transmitting Morse to ships mostly based on Marconi transmitters, typically 10 kW or less. The same information would be transmitted on different frequencies and it was the ship's responsibility to find the correct frequency to monitor. This was because of the different propagation characteristics of the various frequencies used.

History

The following units were based at RNAS Inskip: *

735 Naval Air Squadron 735 Naval Air Squadron (735 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. It was active between 1943 and 1946 as an ASV (Air-to-Surface Vessel) radar Training Unit. Forming at RNAS Inskip in 1943, roughly one year later the sq ...

formed here on 1 August 1943, staying here until 18 March 1944. The unit flew the

Fairey Swordfish The Fairey Swordfish is a biplane torpedo bomber, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. Originating in the early 1930s, the Swordfish, nicknamed "Stringbag", was principally operated by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. It was also use ...

I & II and 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 *

737 Naval Air Squadron 737 Naval Air Squadron (737 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. It was initially active during 1943 as an amphibious Bomber Reconnaissance Training Squadron. Reactivated in 1944 it operated as an ASV Training Unit unt ...

reformed here on 15 March 1944, staying until 28 August 1944. The unit flew Swordfish's and Anson's *

747 Naval Air Squadron 747 Naval Air Squadron (747 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land ...

between 9 June 1943 and 26 January 1944 using the

Fairey Albacore The Fairey Albacore is a single-engine biplane torpedo bomber designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Fairey Aviation. It was primarily operated by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and was heavily used during the Second W ...

, Anson,

Fairey Barracuda The Fairey Barracuda was a British carrier-borne torpedo and dive bomber designed by Fairey Aviation. It was the first aircraft of this type operated by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) to be fabricated entirely from metal. The Barracud ...

, Swordfish and

Supermarine Walrus The Supermarine Walrus (originally designated the Supermarine Seagull V) was a British single-engine amphibious biplane reconnaissance aircraft designed by R. J. Mitchell and manufactured by Supermarine at Woolston, Southampton. The Walrus ...

* 760 Naval Air Squadron reformed here on 1 May 1944, staying until 1 November 1944 when the squadron was disbanded. It flew the

Hawker Sea Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane was a British single-seat fighter aircraft designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. Some versions were built in Canada by the Canada Car and Foundry Co Ltd British variants Hurricane Mk I ; Hurricane Mk I ( ...

IIc * A detachment of 762 Naval Air Squadron from 20 June 1945 with the

Airspeed Oxford The Airspeed AS.10 Oxford is a twin-engine monoplane aircraft developed and manufactured by Airspeed. It saw widespread use for training British Commonwealth aircrews in navigation, radio-operating, bombing and gunnery roles throughout the Seco ...

* 763 Naval Air Squadron reformed here on 14 April 1944, staying until 31 July 1945 when the squadron was disbanded. It flew the

Grumman Avenger The Grumman TBF Avenger (designated TBM for aircraft manufactured by General Motors) is an American World War II-era torpedo bomber developed initially for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, and eventually used by several air and naval a ...

, Anson and Swordfish * 766 Naval Air Squadron between 7 July 1943 and 20 January 1945 as part of

No. 1 Naval Operational Training Unit The numero sign or numero symbol, №, (also represented as Nº, No, No. or no.), is a typographic abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, using the numero sign, ...

flying Swordfish's, Albacore's,

Fulmar The fulmars are tubenosed seabirds of the family Procellariidae. The family consists of two extant species and two extinct fossil species from the Miocene. Fulmars superficially resemble gulls, but are readily distinguished by their flight o ...

's, Anson's,

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 ...

's, Sea Hurricane IIC's, Fireflies, Oxford's and

Miles Master The Miles M.9 Master was a British two-seat monoplane advanced trainer designed and built by aviation company Miles Aircraft Ltd. It was inducted in large numbers into both the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm (FAA) during the Second W ...

's * 'Z' Flight of

787 Naval Air Squadron 787 Naval Air Squadron (787 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land a ...

between 16 November 1943 and 14 January 1944 with the Swordfish, Fulmar I and Sea Hurricane *

811 Naval Air Squadron 811 Naval Air Squadron was a unit of the British Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. It was first founded in 1933, and served during World War II, seeing action in the battle of the Atlantic and on Russian convoys, and was eventually disbanded in 1956. S ...

between 12 December 1944 and 12 January 1944 with the Swordfish and the

Grumman Wildcat The Grumman F4F Wildcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft that entered service in 1940 with the United States Navy, and the British Royal Navy where it was initially known as the Martlet. First used by the British in the North Atlan ...

813 Naval Air Squadron 813 Naval Air Squadron was an aircraft squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm during World War II and again post-war. It initially operated Swordfish Mk Is from the aircraft carrier '' Illustrious'' and took part in the successful raid on Ta ...

between 20 January and 15 February 1944 with the Swordfish *

816 Naval Air Squadron 816 Naval Air Squadron was a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm carrier based squadron formed at the start of the Second World War. The squadron formed aboard in October 1939 with 9 Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers for anti-submarine duty on convoys bet ...

between 11 August and 11 October 1945 with the Firefly *

819 Naval Air Squadron 819 Naval Air Squadron (819 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. History Along with No. 815 Squadron, it performed the successful night attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto on 11 November 1940. The attack was perfo ...

between 27 September and 15 October 1943 with the Swordfish and the Wildcat *

825 Naval Air Squadron 825 Naval Air Squadron is a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Naval Air Squadron which was re-commissioned on 10 October 2014 and currently flies the AgustaWestland Wildcat HMA2. It was a carrier-based squadron that was formed on 8 October 1934 from t ...

between 14 November and 18 December 1943 with the Swordfish and Sea Hurricane IIc *

828 Naval Air Squadron 828 Naval Air Squadron was a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm carrier based squadron formed in September 1940 as a torpedo spotter reconnaissance squadron. It operated in a number of the theatres of the Second World War, carrying out a number of attacks ...

between 10 February and 5 March 1945 with the Avenger *

838 Naval Air Squadron 838 Naval Air Squadron (838 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. They had formed and worked-up at RN Air Section Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on 15 May 1942, and had flown across country to San Francisco, thirty-five an ...

between 6 February and 18 March 1944 with the Swordfish *

1791 Naval Air Squadron 1791 Naval Air Squadron (1791 NAS) was a List of Fleet Air Arm aircraft squadrons, Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA). It was formed on 15 March 1945 at HMS ''Daedalus'', RNAS Lee-on-Solent as a Night Fighter squadron. I ...

between 19 April and 18 June 1945 with the Firefly *

1792 Naval Air Squadron 1792 Naval Air Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy was formed on 15 May 1945 at Lee-on-Solent as a night fighter squadron. It was equipped with the Fairey Firefly NF.Mk I, which was fitted with radar in a centre-line container. ...

between 15 June and 29 August 1945 with the Firefly INF The runway was demolished in the 1970s. The concrete from it was used to help build the

M55 motorway The M55 is a motorway in Lancashire, England, which can also be referred to as the Preston Northern Bypass. It connects the seaside resort of Blackpool to the M6 at Preston. It is 12.2 miles (19.6 km) in length. One mile was originally ...

, from which the aerials can be clearly seen. Today only the smaller taxiways exist as proof of the airfield's former existence. Sea Cadet Training Centre (SCTC) Inskip, a national training centre to the

Sea Cadet Corps Sea cadets are members of a sea cadet corps, a formal uniformed youth organisation for young people with an interest in waterborne activities and or the national navy. The organisation may be sponsored in whole or in part by the navy or a naval s ...

, was situated on the same site until its closure on 31 January 2010.

Current use

Transmitter station

The site is home to a high frequency transmitter station forming part of the Defence High Frequency Communications Service. The station is operated by

Babcock International Group Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...

on behalf of the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

. Prior to 2003 the site was operated by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

. The current station has four aerials high and several other smaller aerials.

Air Training Corps

In January 2012 the former SCTC Inskip reopened as the ''Inskip Cadet Centre'' and is now the new home of Cumbria & Lancashire Wing,

Air Training Corps The Air Training Corps (ATC) is a British volunteer-military youth organisation. They are sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Air Force. The majority of staff are volunteers, and some are paid for full-time work – including ...

. Appropriately the Wing Headquarters Offices are situated in what was the old Watch Tower (

control tower Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled air ...

) when RNAS Inskip was a flying station.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rnas Inskip (Hms Nightjar) Inskip

RNAS Inskip RNAS Inskip, or as it was otherwise known HMS Nightjar, is a former Fleet Air Arm airfield near the village of Inskip, Lancashire, England at . In the 60's and 70's it was a Royal Navy transmitting station known as HMS INSKIP. It is now used ...

Buildings and structures in the Borough of Wyre The Fylde