Royal Air Force Church Lawford or more simply RAF Church Lawford is a former

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 located south of

Church Lawford Church Lawford is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire. It is located just under west of the town of Rugby and east of Coventry. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2021 census was 432. The village lies north of the A428 mai ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, south-west of

Rugby, Warwickshire Rugby is a market town in eastern Warwickshire, England, close to the River Avon. In the 2021 census its population was 78,125, making it the second-largest town in Warwickshire. It is the main settlement within the larger Borough of Rugby whi ...

. The airfield opened in April 1941 and was used by the RAF for pilot training until it closed in 1955.

Based units

A number of Beam Approach units flew from the airfield like when

No. 1509 (Beam Approach Training) Flight RAF This is a List of Beam Approach beacon system Units of the Royal Air Force. The first system to guide RAF aircraft safely down onto a runway was called the Standard Blind Approach (SBA) system and was trialled in the late 1930s. It was also being ...

(BAT Flt) arrived flying

Airspeed Oxford The Airspeed AS.10 Oxford is a twin-engine monoplane aircraft developed and manufactured by Airspeed. It saw widespread use for training British Commonwealth aircrews in navigation, radio-operating, bombing and gunnery roles throughout the Seco ...

s from 6 June 1942 and No. 1533 (Beam Approach Training) Flight RAF (BAT Flt) which again flew Oxfords from 27 October 1942 until April 1945. The first unit to use the airfield was No. 2 Central Flying School flying Oxfords and

Avro Tutor The Avro Type 621 Tutor is a two-seat British radial-engined biplane from the interwar period. It was a simple but rugged basic trainer (aircraft), trainer that was used by the Royal Air Force as well as many other air arms worldwide. Design ...

s from 15 June 1941 until 13 January 1942 when it was renamed No. 1 Flying Instructors School (FIS) flying Oxfords and Tutors carried on until October 1942. The unit was again renamed to

No. 18 (Pilots) Advanced Flying Unit RAF No. 18 (Pilots) Advanced Flying Unit was formed on 27 October 1942 at RAF Church Lawford. The unit was previously 2 Central Flying School which was founded on 15 June 1941 which then turned into 1 Flying Instructors School (FIS) on 13 January 1942 ...

((P)AFU) flying Oxfords and

Boulton Paul Defiant The Boulton Paul Defiant is a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter", without any fixed forward-firing guns ...

s on 27 October 1942 and operated until April 1945. Again the name was changed to No. 20 Flying Training School RAF (FTS) flying

North American Harvard The North American Aviation T-6 Texan is an American single-engined advanced trainer aircraft used to train pilots of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), United States Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and other air forces ...

s from 3 April 1945 using RAF Snitterfield as a relief landing ground (RLG) until March 1948. A further two flying schools used the airfield after the end of the Second World War. The first was No. 20 Service Flying Training School RAF flying Harvards using RAF Snitterfield as a RLG until 1947, which like the wartime units at the airfield was renamed

No. 2 Flying Training School RAF No.2 Flying Training School is a Flying Training School (FTS) of the Royal Air Force (RAF). It is part of No. 22 (Training) Group that delivers glider flying training to the Royal Air Force Air Cadets. Its headquarters is located at RAF Syers ...

starting on 23 July 1947 and operating until 6 April 1948.

Other units

A small number of other units was present at RAF Church Lawford during its lifetime such as No. 68 Maintenance Unit RAF which operated from 1 December 1954 until 27 March 1955 and as a sub-site of No. 68 Maintenance Unit between 27 March 1955 and 30 November 1956. No. 2798 Squadron RAF Regiment was also here at some point.

Airfield Construction Branch

In 1948 The Airfield Construction Branch moved to the airfield with the plant training school moving to

Ryton on Dunsmore Ryton-on-Dunsmore is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Rugby, Warwickshire, situated 5.5 miles (8.8 km) southeast of Coventry and 7.5 miles (12.1 km) west of Rugby, England. The 2001 Census recorded a population of 1,672 in the paris ...

before moving to

Lichfield Lichfield () is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated roughly south-east of the county town of Stafford, south-east of Rugeley, north-east of Walsall, north-west of Tamworth and south-west of B ...

in 1953.

Accidents and Incidents

During life as a RAF training base, accidents were not far away with a number of airmen killed during training. These are just a select few:

Current use

The site of the airfield has been turned into a

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envi ...

called Ling Hall and the Lawford Heath Industrial Estate.

References

External links

RAFACB.org

YouTube channel: RAF Church Lawford
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Church Lawford Airports in England Royal Air Force stations in Warwickshire Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom