112 Signals Unit Stornoway

112 Signals Unit
Ensign of the Royal Air Force
Active	1960–1983
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Royal Air Force
Type	Signals
Role	Monitoring and measurement of V-force Victors and Vulcans Electronic countermeasures (ECM) performance
Part of	RAF Bomber Command 1960–1968 RAF Strike Command 1968–1983
Located	Stornoway Airport

112 Signals Unit, RAF Stornoway (112 S.U.) was a classified Royal Air Force (RAF) Electronic countermeasures (ECM) measurement and evaluation unit based at Stornoway Airport on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. It was an RAF Bomber Command Headquarters (HQBC) directly administered unit established during the height of the Cold War.

Once 112 S.U. had been established at Stornoway Airport from 1 January 1960, under the auspices of the Operational Research Branch (O.R.B) at HQBC, the unit measured the signal strength, frequency bandwidths and aerial performance of the operational Handley Page Victor and Avro Vulcan V bombers as they flew a course towards, over or away from the unit varying from straight-lines to polar patterns. Results were passed back to HQBC and to each aircraft's base for the Electronics Engineers and Technicians to review for performance improvement of each piece of equipment that was measured. The combined success of the unit and each of the aircraft's bases along with support staff at BCDU and RRE Malvern (later to become RSRE Malvern) was demonstrated by the V-force during Operation Skyshield exercises during the early sixties. and subsequent exercises up to the time that the unit was closed in 1983

From the start of the Cold War period, leading up to the time the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and to its subsequent tearing down in 1989 a number of key events happened that shaped the military aviation response. These events included the development of the Hydrogen bomb, the V bomber, Duncan Sandys' 1957 Defence White Paper, the application of Electronic countermeasures (ECM), the 1960 U-2 incident shooting down of Gary Powers' spy plane over Soviet territory, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, development of the Blue Steel missile, shift from a high altitude nuclear bomb to a low-level airborne stand-off nuclear-armed missile in 1964 and the change of platform to the Polaris missile submarine solution in 1968.