RAF Boulmer

Royal Air Force Station Boulmer
Boulmer
Characteristics
ICAO code	EGQM
Coordinates	55 ° 25 ′ 19 ″  N , 1 ° 36 ′ 12 ″  W Coordinates: 55 ° 25 ′ 19 ″  N , 1 ° 36 ′ 12 ″  W
Height above MSL	24 m (79  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	8 km east of Alnwick
Street	5 km to the
Basic data
opening	March 12, 1937
operator	Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force Station Boulmer , RAF Boulmer for short , is a British Royal Air Force facility west of the coastal village of Boulmer in Northumberland , England . The base is one of the smaller of the RAF. It serves as a command center for air defense . Regular flying use no longer takes place.

history

South of today's area, a mock airfield was created in 1940 during the Second World War as bait for enemy aircraft to distract from the nearby RAF station Acklington . With the end of the threat to northern England from the German Air Force, the backdrops and dummy aircraft were removed.

A military airfield was opened here in March 1943 and initially served as a training area for a Spitfire training unit from RAF Eshott . During this time, the field received the three concrete runways that were common at RAF stations at that time and from November 1943 was the base of a flight school for tactical training. At the end of the war, the airfield was initially closed.

With the start of the Cold War , the airfield was reactivated and became home to a UK air defense center. It opened in June 1953, initially subordinate to RAF Acklington, and with the completion of the underground operations center , RAF Boulmer became an independent station in 1954. In the years and decades that followed, the base was expanded, including the installation of various surveillance radars.

The role of RAF Boulmer was expanded in 1975 when the previously stationed on the planned closure of the base RAF Acklington Whirlwind - rescue helicopter of the 'A' Flight of 202 Squadron took up their service in Boulmer. The unit deployed the Sea King from December 1978 . The helicopters were used in the oil rig accidents of the Alexander Keilland in 1980 and Piper Alpha in 1988, the Pan-Am crash over Lockerbie in 1988, the Carlisle flood in 2005 and the Grayrigg train accident in Cumbria in 2007. As a result of the privatization of British air rescue, the unit left the station after 40 years at the end of September 2015.

The role as an air defense center was expanded in 1990 when the training of fighter control officers, including those from friendly countries, started and in the following decades the above and below ground continued to be modernized according to the respective requirements.

Todays use

RAF Boulmer is home to the headquarters of the Air Surveillance and Control System (ASACS) Force. This includes military and civil radars and a control center, the task of which is to display the current air situation in the airspace of the United Kingdom. The QRA - Typhoons in RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby receive their operational orders from here.

Others

Beaufighter Mk.II , 409. Sqn RCAF , Acklington, 1942

RAF Acklington

The former Royal Air Force Station Acklington , 15 km to the south , today used by Her Majesty's Prison Service , was built in 1916 as an airfield for the Royal Flying Corps , but it was initially closed again in 1920. It was reopened in 1938 as a training airfield for the RAF and came under the control of the RAF Fighter Command after the outbreak of World War II . During the Battle of Britain there were two Spitfire and two Hurricane squadrons. After the war there was only a reduced aviation use and the station was closed in 1975.

RAF Eshott

Today's Eshott Airfield , located 20 km south-southwest, was the Royal Air Force Station Eshott between November 1942 and August 1944, home of No. 57 Operational Training Unit , a Spitfire school unit that was then moved to Boulmer.

Web links

• RAF Boulmer on the RAF website (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sea Kings Depart RAF Boulmer, RAF homepage, October 1, 2015 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.