Royal Air Force station
A Royal Air Force station is a permanent Royal Air Force operations location. An RAF station houses personnel who work within the Royal Air Force to deliver its outputs as per its mission statement. Traditionally recognised for its Airpower contingent, the RAF also has many support stations, not all with airfields or runways that can accommodate aircraft. Some radar stations are designated as Remote radar heads as they are operated from other bases with only a skeleton staff on site. Bases that the RAF have owned and operated can be labelled as airfields, relief landing grounds, satellite stations, support stations, radar bases, training establishments, seaplane bases, bombing ranges, ammunition dumps, communication bases and RAF Hospitals.
A handful of extant bases date from the First World War era, but most are from the expansion period of the RAF, or were built in the Second World War. Some stations were reactivated for a different purpose than what was originally intended, such as RAF Harrington, which was an airfield in the Second World War, then in the 1950s became a missile-launching site.
History
The inception of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, saw it inherit real estate from the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Many First World War era aerodromes in Britain were located on, or very near to racecourses. By the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the RAF had bases built and retained during the First World War, expansion bases developed throughout the 1930s, relief landing grounds, seaplane bases inherited from the RNAS, municipal airfields commandeered for wartime use, and reactivated bases abandoned after the First World War.The expansion programme, refers to the decade of the 1930s when it was recognised that the RAF in its then form, would be poorly equipped to deal with hostile activity from a resurgent German Luftwaffe. Several programmes of either upgrading, or more importantly, the creation of new aerodromes, were implemented, with the commensurate number of aircraft and personnel to fulfil the expansion programme. By 1935, this had resulted in an increase of £3,089,000 in spending, to a total amount of £20,650,000. At the peak of operations in the Second World War, military airfields in the United Kingdom numbered more than 550, although most were utilised by the RAF, others may have been within the remit of other aviation sectors, which led to one historical report being named as "Nine Thousand Miles of Concrete" as a way of expressing the measurement collectively of the concrete runways.
Due to the threat mostly emanating from Northern Europe, RAF bases were clustered along the East Coast of England, from Kent, through Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and northwards into Yorkshire and the North East. Bases in the extreme south west, and the northern parts of Scotland were predominantly given over to maritime taskings.
Physical layout
RAF stations with airfields are classified as flying stations and those which have active non-training squadrons being designated as operational. Other sites without aircraft runways or landing areas were considered as non-flying. During the Second World War, the RAF had 59 distinct different variations on station layout and design dependant on the station's functionality. In the late 20th/early 21st centuries, RAF bases took on the acronym of MOB, FOB etc, with operational airfields and main bases being designated at sites such as RAF Coningsby and RAF Marham, with other sites, such as RAF Leeming being deemed as support or training sites. RAF stations typically have a fenced perimeter, and flying stations have the airfield - with its runways, perimeter track, dispersal areas, hangars, technical buildings, offices and accommodation for personnel who live on the unit. Flying stations are typically in remote or rural areas, and are geographically quite large in area.Operational Airfield
Airfields and other stations developed mostly ad-hoc until the expansion period of the 1930s. During the period leading up to, and immediately into the Second World War, a station would follow a similar layout but would be orientated in different ways due to local topography, or would have different building designs due to the nature on training or work undertaken there. Most expansion period stations would be furnished with an "A" type airfield, usually with the longest runway on a west/east axis, as this was mostly the way the prevailing wind blew. An exception to this, for example, would be RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire, which was sandwiched between the Great North Road to the west, Bedale Beck to the north, and the River Swale to the east, so the longest runway here runs north/south. RAF Dishforth was similarly constrained; the main runway was on a north-west to south-east alignment. Although a runway-building programme had been initiated before the outbreak of war, many of the flying stations still used grassed areas for taking-off and landing. For example; the Dambusters Raid of 1943 saw No. 617 Squadron taking off from Scampton on a grassed field.An "A" Type airfield consisted of three intersecting runways, the longest expected to be long, with the other two being at least and each nominally with a width of. As most airfields retained after the Second World War were of the "A" Type, this was the usual layout of each station, a notable exception would be RAF Mount Pleasant on East Falkland which was opened in 1985, and consists of two runways, one on a west/east axis, and the other intersecting the main runway at the eastern end on a south-west to north-east axis.
A typical expansion era station would have four to five hangars in an arc facing the runways and perimeter tracks, the technical sites behind the hangars, areas for messing, drill and accommodation beyond that, and the station headquarters opposite, or adjacent to, the main entrance. The clustered buildings nestled together as designed in the pre-Second World War base was described as being like a "large village".
Some airfields were re-purposed for other tasks; in the 1950s, several old airfields were reactivated as part of the Thor programme. An example of this is RAF Harrington in Northamptonshire which had been used in the Second World War by both the USAAF and the RAF, later becoming a satellite station to RAF North Luffenham under the Thor programme. Whilst this was closed down in 1963, the remains of the missile launchers survived and were grade II listed in 2011.
Other landing grounds
Broadly speaking, these fall into three categories; satellite landing ground, a relief landing ground, and a scatter airfield. The idea of a relief landing ground developed during wartime when aerodromes were necessary for training and the available space to practice landing and taking-off in aircraft became paramount. An RLG did not have the same amount of effort put into it as a standard aircraft operating base, with less attention paid towards the built estate and drainage. This carried on after the war, with the various elementary flying schools needing RLGs, such as RAF Mona for RAF Valley, and RAF Dishforth and RAF Church Fenton for RAF Linton-on-Ouse. After the cessation of flying training at RAF Church Fenton in 1994, it became an RLG for flights from nearby RAF Linton-on-Ouse. It was designated as an Enhanced Relief Landing Ground until the station was closed completely in 2013. Another acronym, ELG, stood for Emergency Landing Ground, which could something as simple as any flat grassed area near to an existing airfield; Sway in Hampshire provided an ELG for RAF Christchurch and also served as a decoy site.Relief landing grounds for airships and balloon detachments were known as mooring-out points. Again, these sites would consist mainly of an open area with a concrete stanchion to anchor the airship or balloons. Space could be given over for tentage, but the main reason was to spread out assets in case of bombardment by enemy forces so that all equipment was not in the same area at the same time.
Satellite landing grounds were sites that were used either for aircraft maintenance or for the storage of airframes. All were on the western side of Britain, away from the range of most enemy aircraft. Typically, the base would have been a large parkland or country estate requisitioned into service and possessed a small complement of hangars.
A satellite station was a dispersal airfield where aircraft could be flown to and thus, the squadrons assets were spread out and not contained all in one area in case of aerial attack. Initially, the satellite airfield was used this way, but it also became a good way of easing overcrowding on bases. In 1939, upon the outbreak of war, the Wellingtons of No. 115 Squadron based at RAF Marham were dispersed to the satellite/scatter airfield of RAF Barton Bendish, as per the Bomber Command Scatter Plan, hence the name of Scatter Airfield. A scatter airfield is not be confused with the term scatter station, which was applied to such sites as RAF Stenigot in Lincolnshire which was part of the tropospheric scatter system.
An Advanced Landing Ground was a temporary airfield which was pressed into action for a certain operation or necessity which often had very little in the way of facilities and crews would live in tents rather than buildings. RAF Needs Oar Point was one such ground, which by the time of its full development in the spring of 1944, it had two Somerfield track runways and accommodation for over a 1,000 men in tents. By the time of Operation Overlord, the aircraft had moved on and the airfield was not used again, being officially de-requisitioned in December 1944.
Support base
A support base is one where usually, there are no flying operations, though ostensibly, most military bases have helicopter landing areas. Support bases usually provide training, as opposed to RAF Fylingdales, as an example, which has no flying activity but monitors airspace for missile launches and outer space for space junk. The most numerous support bases without flying facilities are the Remote Radar Heads and communication bases dotted around the United Kingdom. Some of these smaller bases did not have the resources for pay, medical, or dental facilities, and so would be 'parented' by a larger station, most commonly the nearest main station, although this might not have always been the case. When RAF Staxton Wold was in the process of being decommissioned in 1945, it was parented by RAF Sutton Bridge, and then later RAF Henlow. Many of the smaller sites, especially those with a radar or communications role, would have accommodation offsite; the married quarters for those serving at RAF Fylingdales is a small estate in Whitby.Many support training or administrative stations, were grand houses on large estates that were requisitioned during wartime; Belton Park, Beningbrough Hall as an accommodation site for RCAF personnel from RAF Linton on Ouse, Bawtry Hall, which served as the HQ for No. 1 Group into the 1980s, and Brampton Park in Cambridgeshire which became RAF Brampton and housed many non-flying air activities. Other support bases include the bunkers at Uxbridge, Bentley Priory and at RAF High Wycombe. Uxbridge and Bentley Priory were notable for being the command centres during the Battle of Britain, whereas High Wycombe's newer bunker was opened in 1988 at a cost of £80 million to serve as a CAOC.