Royal Air Force South Cerney or more simply RAF South Cerney 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 in South Cerney near Cirencester in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England. It was built during the 1930s to conduct flying training. The airfield was turned over to the

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 ...

in 1971 and is now known as the

Duke of Gloucester Barracks The Duke of Gloucester Barracks is a British Army barracks at South Cerney in Gloucestershire. The site is also home to the Joint Air Mounting Centre. History The barracks were established, on the site of the former RAF South Cerney, in 1971, wh ...

History

Construction of the airfield began in 1936 and it was still underway when it opened on 16 August 1937.

No. 3 Flying Training School No. 3 Flying Training School is a Royal Air Force military training school, which manages elementary flying training for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and also for the training of all non-pilot aircrew for the RAF and is home to the Central ...

was the initial tenant and was equipped with a variety of

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

aircraft which were replaced by Airspeed Oxfords in mid-1938. When 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 ...

began in August 1939, the school was redesignated as a Service Flying Training School (SFTS) and was equipped with 44 Oxfords and 31 Hawker Harts. Shortly afterwards the headquarters of

No. 23 Group RAF No. 23 Group RAF was a group of the Royal Air Force, first established in 1918, and finally disbanded in 1975. The group was reformed as No 23 (Training) Group in RAF Inland Area on 12 April 1926, at RAF Spitalgate, by re-numbering No. 3 Group RA ...

, responsible for advanced flying training, was transferred to South Cerney with its communications flight. By the late summer of 1940, the Oxfords had replaced all of the Harts and the school was dedicated to multi-engine training.

No. 15 Service Flying Training School RAF Fifteen or 15 may refer to: *15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16 *one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015 Music *Fifteen (band), a punk rock band Albums * ''15'' (Buckcherry album), 2005 * ''15'' (Ani Lorak album ...

was transferred to the base in early June 1940 with its Oxfords and

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 ...

trainers, but it moved to RAF Kidlington at the end of August. Soon afterwards, the syllabus of 3 SFTS changed to intermediate flying training and it continued in this role until 14 March 1942 when it was converted into No. 3 (Pilots) Advanced Flying Unit RAF to orient foreign-trained pilot to British conditions and standards. During the Second World War a number of training units were posted to the airfield: * No. 1 Initial Training School * No. 2 Flying Training School RAF * No. 27 Group Communication Flight RAF * No. 83 Gliding School RAF *

No. 1519 (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 ...

No. 1539 (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 ...

* Air Crew Allocation Unit * Aircrew Officer Training School The airfield was handed over to the Army on 1 July 1971 and was renamed the

. Parts of "Piece of Cake", a 1988 British six-part television serial depicting the fictional life of a Royal Air Force fighter squadron during the first year of the Second World War, were filmed here.

Runways

The site has two short

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s that are regularly used by two commercial freefall parachuting businesses.Skydive South Cerney

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:South Cerney Military installations closed in 1971 Military parachuting in the United Kingdom Royal Air Force stations in Gloucestershire

History

Runways

See also

References

Bibliography