Battle of Britain Memorial Flight
|
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight |
|
|---|---|
 The BBMF's Lancaster with a Spitfire (front) and a Hurricane (rear) |
|
| Lineup | 1957 |
| Country |
 United Kingdom
|
| Armed forces | United Kingdom Armed Forces |
| Armed forces |
 Royal Air Force
|
| Location | RAF Coningsby |
| Former locations |
RAF Biggin Hill , RAF Coltishall |
| motto | “Read We Forget” ( So that we may never forget ) |
| Web presence | https://www.raf.mod.uk/display-teams/battle-of-britain-memorial-flight/ |
| Aircraft | |
| bomber | Avro Lancaster |
|
Fighter aircraft / helicopter |
Hawker Hurricane , Supermarine Spitfire |
The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is a unit of the Royal Air Force (RAF), which with its historical aircraft remembering the run in 1940, the Battle of Britain honors. Her home airport is RAF Coningsby .
history
Historical background
In 1940, during the Second World War , Great Britain was in a precarious war situation. The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill prepared his country on June 4, 1940 with the speech We Shall Fight on the Beaches to have to fight against German invaders ( Company Sea Lion ) on its own soil. Churchill again paid tribute to the important role played by the Royal Air Force, fighting on the verge of exhaustion, during the Battle of Britain on August 20, 1940: Never was so much owed by so many to so few . (“Never before have so many owed so much to so few.”) The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is intended to commemorate the importance of the Royal Air Force.
founding
The construction of the unit began in 1957 under the name The Historic Aircraft Flight after the commander of the RAF Air Force Base Biggin Hill recognized the great interest of the population in historical overflights. To continue the previous annual overflights, he decided to pull together more aircraft. One of the last existing Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft on Biggin Hill with the registration number LF363 was struck by three Supermarine Spitfire machines in 1957 , which had been used for weather observation up to that point . The first overflight under the name The Historic Aircraft Flight over London took place on September 15th .
In 1958, the name was changed to Battle of Britain Flight , which it operated under for the next ten years. On June 1, 1969, the name was changed to its current name. Finally, in 1973, the squadron was supplemented by the four-engined long-range Avro Lancaster bomber , license plate PA474, with the name City of Lincoln, which was received on the RAF Waddington base .
Since 1976 the unit has been based in Coningsby , Lincolnshire .
Planes
In the 2010s, the aircraft fleet included an Avro Lancaster, a Douglas C-47 Dakota , six Spitfires, two Hawker Hurricanes and two De Havilland chipmunks from the post-war period for training purposes.
In 2014, the world's second airworthy Lancaster from the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Canada flew to Great Britain, enabling two Lancasters to fly by in formation for one summer.
staff
The unit consists of more than two dozen permanent employees who are responsible for the technical maintenance and the organization of the flight service and are part of No. 1 bomber group of the Royal Air Force. The pilots of the aircraft are members of active squadrons of the RAF. In their free time, they ensure the flights of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
Public accessibility
A small visitor center exhibits some memorabilia that are free to visit. The tour through the aircraft hangars of the BBMF, which is also offered, is chargeable.
literature
- Jarrod Cotter: The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight . Publisher Pen & Sword Books Limited, 2017 new edition, ISBN 978-1-4738-6449-8
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Geoff Simpson: The History of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association: Commemorating the Few . Pen and Sword Verlag, 2015. ISBN 978-1-78159-387-5 , p. 67
- ^ Two Lancasters fly together for the last time . BBC, September 23, 2014
- ^ Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Visitor Center , Lincolnshire County Council