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Built shortly before the beginning of World War 2 as a Bomber Command airfield it served in that role until the 1960’s when it was transferred to fighter command. Phantom pilots and navigators were trained there for more than 20 years. After the Phantom was phased out Coningsby continued as the training base for the Tornado F.3 and today it continues as the RAF’s foremost fighter base with the Typhoon.
BBMF
Avro Lancaster (Picture courtesy Urs Schnyder)
RAF Coningsby is of course
best known as the home of the Battle of Britain flight which it now
houses for almost 30 years.
There are guided tours through the BBMF hangar which in my case took
about 2 hours. This depends of course on how many people take part in a
tour and how many questions are asked by the visitors. As the Hangar is
not a Museum but a part of a working airfield, photography is not always
easy. Also depending on the time of the year some aircraft may be away.
As there is always some kind of maintenance going on, it is however
possible to take pictures of the aircraft with panels removed, something
that is not of the seen at airshows. Also who would have thought that
the tail turret of the Lancaster is full of dolls and teddybears?
Typhoon
Besides the Battle of Britain flight RAF Coningsby is home to the following Squadrons:
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3 (F) Squadron which was the first frontline Typhoon Squadron
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11 Squadron the first multi role Typhoon Squadron
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29 (R) Squadron the Typhoon Operational Conversion Unit
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41 (R) Squadron, Test and Evaluation Squadron
Just a about 200 meters
along the road from the Battle of Britain visitor center, there is a
large parking site with a mobile snack bar that permits a good view of
aircraft in the landing pattern. I made use of this a few days after my
visit to the Battle of Britain flight.
Unfortunately the number of flights done during one day were
disappointingly few. The only excitement being a scramble by four
aircraft that started in opposite directions on the same runway. After
takeoff the aircraft are normally gone for an hour during which nothing
much happened. Fortunately there were some touch and go exercises by
different aircraft to pass the time until the typhoons returned. As the
most difficult part of a flight is the landing, each aircraft made
between 4 and 5 touch and goes before they finally landed which gave a
good chance for taking pictures.
Bae Typhoon 3 Sqn. QO-M (Picture courtesy Urs Schnyder)
Bae Typhoon (Picture courtesy Urs Schnyder)
Beech Avenger C-1 45 Sqn. ZK456 (Picture courtesy Urs Schnyder)
Bell Griffin HT.1 Defence Helicopter Flying School at RAF Shawbury (Picture courtesy Urs Schnyder)
BAe 125 CC.3 32 Sqn. ZD620 (Picture courtesy Urs Schnyder)
BAe 125 CC.3 32 Sqn. ZD620 (Picture courtesy Urs Schnyder)
BAe 125 CC.3 32 Sqn. ZD620 (Picture courtesy Urs Schnyder)