Concept

RAF Weston-super-Mare

Résumé
Royal Air Force Weston-super-Mare or more simply RAF Weston-super-Mare is a former Royal Air Force station which was located on a civilian airfield in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England. It was set up as a municipal civilian airport in the 1930s before being taken over by the RAF in the Second World War for training and technical services. It was also the site of an aircraft production facility. In the postwar period it was used by Westland Helicopters. It is now home to the Helicopter Museum and a housing estate. The airport was started by Weston-super-Mare Urban District Council in the 1930s. Sir Alan Cobham had encouraged local authorities to build airfields as part of his 'Municipal Aerodromes Scheme' in the late 1920s. In May 1936, scheduled air services were started by Railway Air Services using the de Havilland Dragon and de Havilland Express to fly from Plymouth to Haldon, then across the Bristol Channel to Cardiff Municipal Airport before recrossing the Bristol Channel to Weston and then flying on to Bristol (Whitchurch) Airport. The distance from Cardiff to Weston is less than across the water, however the road journey would have been around or a trip on the Aust Ferry before the Severn Bridge opened in 1966, although the Severn Tunnel enabled rail travel between South Gloucestershire and South Wales. By 1938, a passenger terminal and administration building had been completed, along with a side opening hangar, and Western Airways started services using de Havilland Dragon Rapides and a de Havilland Dragonfly, for a scheduled service via Birmingham to Manchester. On 18 October 1938 the Straight Corporation, headed by Whitney Straight purchased control of Norman Edgar (Western Airways) Ltd. and renamed it Western Airways, Ltd. On 2 January 1939, the Royal Air Force opened a School of Technical Training at RAF Locking, that did not have an airfield, but was only a mile from the Weston-super-Mare site. This was followed in 1939 by the establishment of No.
À propos de ce résultat
Cette page est générée automatiquement et peut contenir des informations qui ne sont pas correctes, complètes, à jour ou pertinentes par rapport à votre recherche. Il en va de même pour toutes les autres pages de ce site. Veillez à vérifier les informations auprès des sources officielles de l'EPFL.