RAF Shawbury
| Royal Air Force Station Shawbury | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Characteristics | |
| ICAO code | EGOS |
| Coordinates | |
| Height above MSL | 76 m (249 ft ) |
| Transport links | |
| Distance from the city center | 15 km northeast of Shrewsbury |
| Street |
|
| Basic data | |
| opening | June 1917 |
| operator | Royal Air Force |
| Runways | |
| 05/23 | 1379 m × 46 m asphalt |
| 18/36 | 1834 m × 46 m asphalt |
The Royal Air Force Station Shawbury , RAF Shawbury for short , is a military airfield of the British Royal Air Force north of the village of Shawbury and ten miles northeast of Shrewsbury in the county of Shropshire , England . The station houses the cross-military flight school for helicopter pilots .
history
The origins of the airfield date back to June 1917 when the airfield was named No. 9 Training Depot Station of the Royal Flying Corps was opened. A little later, the airfield became home to three squadrons, the 10th , 29th and 67th Squadron , the first two of which still exist in the 21st century. They flew different types of aircraft. After the end of the First World War , the station was closed and the area was used again for agriculture.
In the run-up to the Second World War , the airfield was reactivated in 1938. In early summer RAF Shawbury became home to the No. 11 Flying Training School (FTS) from RAF Wittering . It operated a number of different types of aircraft and was No. 11 (Pilot) Advanced Flying Unit renamed. The advanced training at Airspeed Oxfords took place here until January 1944. RAF Shawbury was attacked only once during the first years of the war, on June 27, 1940, by a single German bomber .
In January 1944, Shawbury became home to the Central Navigation School (CNS) with its Wellingtons and Stirlings . Their task was to improve the accuracy of the night raids of the RAF Bomber Command . In addition, the navigation technology should also be improved. For this purpose, the Lancaster "Aries" started on October 21, 1944 for the first circumnavigation of the world by a British aircraft, which led him to the sister air forces in Australia and New Zealand . The aircraft of the flight school, now renamed Empire Air Navigation School , was significantly modified the following year and in May 1945 also flew to the geographic and magnetic North Pole.
The facility, which was only renamed CNS in 1949, was merged with the School of Air Traffic Control (ATC) in 1950 and was given a new task. The new Central Navigation and Control School was initially equipped with Lincoln and Anson , later Vampires and Provost were added. The next change took place in 1963 with the relocation of the navigation wing to RAF Manby . After the navigation group was withdrawn, the remaining air traffic control group became the Central Air Traffic Control School .
In 1976, when the Whirlwinds of No. 2 Flying Training School (2 FTS) and the Gazelles of the Helicopter Squadron of the Central Flying School (CFS) the age of rotorcraft at RAF Shawbury. The Whirlwinds were replaced by Wessex in 1980 and a Wessex detachment was set up in RAF Valley for search and rescue training .
Fixed-wing aircraft operations initially continued to take place in parallel. After the retirement of the Jet Provost in 1989 and the chipmunks of the RAF's youth organization in 1996, fixed-wing aircraft only made sporadic movements.
The 2 FTS was officially disbanded on April 1, 1997, and was replaced by a new cross-armed Defense Helicopter Flying School , equipped with two Squirrel HT.1 squadrons and a Griffin HT.1 squadron. The training was carried out as part of a PPP initiative with FBS, a joint venture between Flight Refueling Aviation, Bristows Helicopters Ltd and SERCo.
These helicopter models were used for a good two decades until 2018 and the first copies of the successor models Juno HT.1 and Jupiter HT.1 arrived in Shawbury in early April 2017. The new civil PPP partner is Ascent Flight Training, a Babcock-Lockheed Martin joint venture. The building of the new simulator center was named in 2020 after the " Duke of Cambridge " who completed his training in Shawbury in 2010.
Todays use
The base has been the base of the Defense Helicopter Flying School since 1997 . You are under three flying training squadrons of the three British armed forces:
- 60th Squadron, Royal Air Force
- 660th Squadron AAC of the Army Air Corps (AAC) of the British Army
- 705th Naval Air Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy
You also report to the 202nd Squadron (the former Search and Rescue Training Unit / SARTU) in RAF Valley . The airspace around RAF Ternhill and Chetwynd Airfield is also used for training.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ PICTURES: Juno and Jupiter helicopters arrive at RAF Shawbury, Flightglobal, April 5, 2017
- ↑ Chief of Air Staff names new helicopter training facility, RAF News, February 28, 2020
- ↑ Chetwynd Airfield helicopter training area, geograph.org.uk
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