RAF Cranwell

Royal Air Force College Cranwell
Cranwell
Characteristics
ICAO code	EGYD
Coordinates	53 ° 1 ′ 49 ″  N , 0 ° 29 ′ 0 ″  W Coordinates: 53 ° 1 ′ 49 ″  N , 0 ° 29 ′ 0 ″  W
Height above MSL	66 m (217  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	25 miles south of Lincoln
Street
Basic data
opening	April 1, 1916
operator	Royal Air Force
Runways
09/27	2082 m × 45 m asphalt
01/19	1464 m × 45 m asphalt
09R / 27L	717 m × 40 m grass

The Royal Air Force College Cranwell , RAF Cranwell for short , is a military airfield of the British Royal Air Force five kilometers northwest of Sleaford in the county of Lincolnshire , England . The RAF College is the officers' school of the British Air Force, the base is one of the oldest in the RAF.

history

College Hall, RAF College Cranwell

After a year of preparation, the Royal Naval Air Service Training Establishment Cranwell was opened in the spring of 1916, which became RAF Cranwell with the establishment of the Royal Air Force in 1918. After the war, TE Lawrence , better known as "Lawrence of Arabia", was stationed here in the 1920s .

Sir Frank Whittle was stationed at RAF Cranwell in the late 1920s. Here he formulated the main ideas for jet propulsion, and in 1941 the first flight of a British jet aircraft took place in Cranwell through the Gloster E.28 / 39 . After his death in 1996, his ashes were interred in the RAF Cranwell Church.

Cranwell became the training center for all RAF officer candidates and all flight training took place here in the first decades of the training center's existence. Only with the extension of the training from two to three years from 1960, in which an academic degree could also be obtained, the advanced training was moved to other airfields such as RAF Valley , only the basic training on Jet Provost remained in Cranwell.

Todays use

Currently (2019) the following training facilities use RAF Cranwell:

• Royal Air Force College (RAFC), the RAF's officers' school and therefore the equivalent ofthe British Army's Sandhurst Military Academy
• Headquarters of the Central Flying School (CFS)
• No. 3 Flying Training School (No. 3 FTS): In addition to the headquarters, one of three flying squadrons for basic training, the 57th Reserve Squadron , equipped with the Perfect since 2016, is stationed in Cranwell . (The other two are in RAF Barkston Heath .) Added to this is the 45th Reserve Squadron , equipped with the Phenom 100 since 2018 , for "multi-engine" training.

There are also a few other departments.

See also

• List of Royal Air Force bases

Web links

• Official homepage in English
• Private homepage in English about the history of the RAF in Lincolnshire including the Cranwells

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Affinity delivers first Prefect trainers for UKMFTS program, Janes, November 21, 2016 ( Memento of the original from November 22, 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.