Kinloss Barracks is a military installation located near the village of Kinloss, on the

Moray Firth The Moray Firth (; Scottish Gaelic: ''An Cuan Moireach'', ''Linne Mhoireibh'' or ''Caolas Mhoireibh'') is a roughly triangular inlet (or firth) of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of north of Scotl ...

in the north of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Until 2012 it was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station,

RAF Kinloss Royal Air Force Kinloss or RAF Kinloss is a former Royal Air Force (RAF) station located near the village of Kinloss, on the Moray Firth in the north east of Scotland. The RAF station opened on 1 April 1939 and served as a training establishme ...

History

RAF Kinloss

The

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

station RAF Kinloss opened at the site on 1 April 1939 and served as a training airfield during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After the war it was handed over to

Coastal Command RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was founded in 1936, when the RAF was restructured into Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands and played an important role during the Second World War. Maritime Aviation ...

to watch over Russian ships and submarines in the

Norwegian Sea The Norwegian Sea ( no, Norskehavet; is, Noregshaf; fo, Norskahavið) is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to ...

. Until 2010 it was the main base for the RAF's fleet of Nimrod MR2

maritime patrol aircraft A maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), also known as a patrol aircraft, maritime reconnaissance aircraft, or by the older American term patrol bomber, is a fixed-wing aircraft designed to operate for long durations over water in maritime patrol roles ...

. It was intended that the MR2 would be replaced by the

Nimrod MRA4 The BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4 was a planned maritime patrol and attack aircraft intended to replace the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR2. The rebuilt aircraft would have extended the operating life of the Nimrod fleet by several decades and signific ...

, but the MRA4 was cancelled in the Strategic Defence and Security Review of October 2010. Kinloss then became surplus to RAF use and regular flying operations ceased on 31 July 2011.

Transfer to British Army

On 18 July 2011, the MOD announced that

would become a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

barracks, with army units arriving in 2014 or 2015. A further announcement in November 2011 confirmed that 39 Engineer Regiment (Air Support) of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

would move from

Waterbeach Barracks Waterbeach Barracks' is a former military installation in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire. The site was an RAF Station, RAF Waterbeach and then used by the Royal Engineers, part of the British Army, from 1966, until 2013 when the site closed to make wa ...

, near

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, to Kinloss, in July 2012. It was expected that 930 service personnel and their families would move at this time. The number of army personnel based at Kinloss would be 41% down on the number of personnel which were present during the RAF's tenure. After 73 years as an RAF station, control of Kinloss transferred to the British Army at 1200 on 26 July 2012. A ceremony was attended by eight former RAF Kinloss station commanders, the last station commander Group Captain JJ Johnston, the

Lord Lieutenant of Moray This is a list of people who have served as Lord Lieutenant of Moray, Scotland. Until 1928 the office was known as Lord Lieutenant of the County of Elgin. Lord Lieutenants of Elginshire *Francis Stuart, 9th Earl of Moray 17 March 1794 – 28 ...

and invited guests. The RAF

colours Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

were lowered for the last time and British Army colours raised to mark the new chapter in Kinloss's history. The airfield was maintained by the RAF as a relief landing ground for aircraft based at nearby

RAF Lossiemouth Royal Air Force Lossiemouth or more commonly RAF Lossiemouth is a military airfield located on the western edge of the town of Lossiemouth in Moray, north-east Scotland. Lossiemouth is one of the largest and busiest fast-jet stations in the ...

and continued to be used by Moray Flying Club. It could not be booked by other aircraft as a diversion airfield or for refuelling stops. In 2020,

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

, the UK Prime Minister visited Kinloss barracks and to hear about three Puma helicopters used to support the National Health Service and how personnel there were helping with mobile COVID-19 testing units. During 2020, regular flying temporarily returned to Kinloss when the first of the RAF's Poseidon MRA1 fleet arrived in the UK from the US in February 2020, initially operating from the barracks whilst work was carried out at RAF Lossiemouth to accommodate the new aircraft. Lossiemouth's airfield was closed between 10 August and 16 October 2020 whilst the intersection of its two runways was resurfaced. During the closure, routine

Typhoon FGR4 The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twinjet, twin-engine, canard (aeronautics), canard delta wing, multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactu ...

training operations were relocated to Kinloss. A second Poseidon arrived before they and the Typhoons departed for Lossiemouth on the re-opening of the airfield in October 2020. The runway at Kinloss was permanently closed during 2021 and the military aerodrome traffic zone around the airfield withdrawn in January 2022. Moray Flying Club relocated to Lossiemouth. In early 2022,

Orbex Orbital Express Launch Ltd., or Orbex, is a United Kingdom-based aerospace company that is developing a small commercial orbital rocket called Prime. Orbex is headquartered in Forres, Moray, in Scotland and has subsidiaries in Denmark and Germany ...

, a commercial

space rocket A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and syst ...

manufacturer established a test site at Kinloss Barracks. The site is used for the testing of launch procedures for the company's orbital launch vehicle known as ''Prime''. The rocket is intended to launch small satellites into

low-earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

. Actual launches will take place from

Space Hub Sutherland The Sutherland spaceport, also known as Space Hub Sutherland or UKVL Sutherland, is planned to be the first spaceport of the United Kingdom. It would be operated by a commercial entity and would employ 40 people. The spaceport will host a launc ...

, located on the

A' Mhòine A' Mhòine () is a peninsula in the Highlands, Scotland. The peninsula is bounded to the west by Loch Eriboll, and to the east by the Kyle of Tongue. The A838 road crosses the peninsula on an east–west axis. Much of the peninsula is owned b ...

peninsula in the

Highlands Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau. Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to: Places Albania * Dukagjin Highlands Armenia * Armenian Highlands Australia *Sou ...

Based units

The following notable units are based at Kinloss Barracks.

British Army

( 8 Engineer Brigade, 12 (Force Support) Engineer Group) ** 39 Engineer Regiment (Air Support) ***34 Field Squadron ***48 Field Squadron ***53 Field Squadron ***60 Headquarters & Support Squadron ***65 Field Support Squadron ** 71 Engineer Regiment (Air Support) (Army Reserve) ***124 Field Squadron (Air Support) ****236 Troop

Defence High Frequency Communications Service (DHFCS)

* DHFCS Kinloss

Operations

Royal Engineers

39 Engineer Regiment is tasked with providing air support engineering, such as repair of airfield operating surfaces, to both the RAF and to the British Army, and is the only regular regiment focused on providing such a capability. Around 800 personnel are based at Kinloss.

Defence High Frequency Communications Service (DHFCS)

Kinloss Barracks is home to a

high frequency High frequency (HF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) between 3 and 30 megahertz (MHz). It is also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as its wavelengths range from one to ten ...

receiver station and network control centre forming part of the

Defence High Frequency Communications Service The Defence High Frequency Communications Service or the DHFCS is a British military beyond line-of-sight communication system operated by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and used predominately by the UK Armed Forces, as well as other authorised ...

. Prior to 2003 the system at Kinloss was operated by No. 81 Signals Unit (Detachment North) of the RAF. The station is now operated by

Babcock International Group Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...

on behalf of the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

Future

Further army personnel

The Army Basing Programme, part of the wider

Army 2020 Army 2020, was the name given to the restructuring of the British Army, in light of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. Background The British Government gave an indication of its proposals for the future structure of the Army in ea ...

programme, is expected to result in further army personnel relocating to Kinloss Barracks by 2022.

References

{{reflist

External links

British Army – 39 Engineer RegimentUK Military Aeronautical Information Publication – Kinloss (EGQK)
1938 establishments in Scotland Barracks in Scotland Installations of the British Army Buildings and structures in Moray Government buildings completed in 1938

History

RAF Kinloss

Transfer to British Army

Based units

British Army

Defence High Frequency Communications Service (DHFCS)

Operations

Royal Engineers

Defence High Frequency Communications Service (DHFCS)

Future

Further army personnel

See also

References

External links