Crail Airfield

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Crail Airfield

The Crail Airfield is a former military airfield near the Scottish village of Crail in the Council Area Fife .

history

The military airfield was opened in July 1918, towards the end of the First World War . It served as a training center for the Royal Air Force for the Avro 504 and Royal Aircraft Factory FE2 aircraft types . Among other things, the No. 104 Squadron RAF and the US 120th Aero Squadron the airfield. In 1919, after the war ended, Crail Airfield was closed.

After the outbreak of World War II , the facility was reactivated on October 1, 1940. It served again as a training facility for the British Air Force for the models Fairey Albacore and Fairey Swordfish, among others . Due to the proximity to the Firth of Forth with the possibility of cooperation with ships of the Royal Navy stationed there, the aim was primarily to train torpedo drops. The No. 770 Squadron RAF was one of those units that were stationed at Crail Airfield for a longer period of time. After the end of the war, the No. 780 Squadron RAF at the site until the beginning of 1947 to conduct instrument flight training there.

In the meantime, the British Navy, the Crail Airfield was continued as HMS Bruce . For two years it served as a school for the next generation of military personnel. In the 1950s, the Black Watch used the airfield, but the St Andrews University Air Squadron also operated flights with de Havilland Canada Chipmunks from there. Between 1956 and 1960 the Joint Services School of Linguists was located on site. She provided training in the languages ​​of the Warsaw Pact countries , primarily in Russian , Polish and Czech . The facility was then closed. Today the facility is used as the Crail Raceway for automobile events.

Buildings

Buildings on Crail Airfield

Crail Airfield is located directly on the north coast of the Firth of Forth, around 1.5 km east of Crail. Almost all of the buildings that are preserved today are from the reopening during the Second World War. All of the buildings that have been preserved are listed. In addition to the numerous monuments in categories B and C, four buildings, the former training building, the training building for torpedo attacks, the tower and the repair hangar, are classified as individual monuments of the highest monument category A. The southern part with the runways is protected as a Scheduled Monument .

The airfield has four runways with lengths between 900 m and 1.2 km.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Information about Crail Airfield
  2. ↑ Information about the Crail Raceway ( Memento of the original from December 19, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.crailraceway.co.uk
  3. ↑ Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  4. ↑ Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  5. ↑ Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  6. ↑ Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  7. ↑ a b Scheduled Monument - entry . In: Historic Scotland .

Web links

Commons : Crail Airfield  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 56 ° 16 '12.1 "  N , 2 ° 36' 14.9"  W.