Shenington Gliding Club is a British

gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word ''soaring'' is al ...

club near the village of

Shenington Shenington is a village about west of Banbury in the United Kingdom. It was an exclave of Gloucestershire until the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 transferred it to Oxfordshire. Shenington is on Oxfordshire's boundary with Warwickshire. Sh ...

in the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

, seven miles north west of

Banbury Banbury is a historic market town on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, South East England. It had a population of 54,335 at the 2021 Census. Banbury is a significant commercial and retail centre for the surrounding area of north Oxfordshire ...

. The club changed its name to Edgehill Gliding Centre in 2022, but still operates from Shenington Airfield. The present club was founded in 1991, though gliding had been a regular activity at the airfield since 1984. The club operates every day of the week and currently has two K13, a K21, a K8, a

motor glider A motor glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that can be flown with or without engine power. The FAI Gliding Commission Sporting Code definition is: a fixed-wing aerodyne equipped with a means of propulsion (MoP), capable of sustained soaring flight ...

, two lpg powered winches and a tug. There are numerous privately owned gliders. The club hosts trial lessons for visitors and runs courses with professional instructors from March to October.

RAF Edgehill

The airfield was completed in 1941, and called RAF Edgehill. No. 21 Operational Training Unit (OTU) was based at the airfield operating

Vickers Wellington The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engined, long-range medium bomber. It was designed during the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey. Led by Vickers-Armstrongs' chief designer Rex Pierson; a key feature of the aircraft is its g ...

Miles Martinet The Miles M.25 Martinet was a target tug aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm (FAA) that was in service during the Second World War. It was the first British aircraft to be designed specifically for target towing. Work on t ...

s and

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...

s also No. 12 OTU were based at the airfield as well.

No. 1 Flying Training School RAF The No. 1 Flying Training School (1 FTS) is the oldest military pilot training school in the world, currently used to deliver rotary training to aircrew of the British armed forces. History First formation (1919 – 1928) On 23 December 1919 ...

also used Edgehill at some point. The airfield was also used for the flight testing of the

Gloster E28/39 The Gloster E.28/39, (also referred to as the Gloster Whittle, Gloster Pioneer, or Gloster G.40) was the first British jet-engined aircraft and first flew in 1941. It was the fourth jet to fly, after the German Heinkel He 178 (1939), the Ita ...

in 1942 after it had made its maiden flights at

RAF Cranwell Royal Air Force Cranwell or more simply RAF Cranwell is a Royal Air Force station in Lincolnshire, England, close to the village of Cranwell, near Sleaford. Among other functions, it is home to the Royal Air Force College (RAFC), which trai ...

. After the war it became a storage depot. After a brief period as a Flying Training School, it finally closed as an

RAF 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 in 1953.

Accidents and incidents

References

''The Story of RAF Edgehill'', by Eric G. Kaye, The Self-Publishing Association Ltd., 1990 {{Reflist

External links

WW II Airfields of Oxfordshire

Shenington Gliding Club

BBC History – The Long Wait
Gliding in England Organisations based in Oxfordshire Flying clubs