No. 14 Maintenance Unit RAF
Royal Air Force Carlisle Kingstown, Carlisle |
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| Summary | |
| Airport type |
Decommissioned and closed Military Maintenance & Storage Unit on a former airfield |
| Operator | Royal Air Force |
| Location | Carlisle, Cumbria |
| Coordinates | 54°55′37″N 02°57′37″W / 54.92694°N 2.96028°WCoordinates: 54°55′37″N 02°57′37″W / 54.92694°N 2.96028°W |
| Map | |
 RAF Carlisle
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RAF Carlisle (previously RAF Kingstown) was a Royal Air Force establishment, now closed after being used for a variety of roles over a period of fifty eight years and formerly located 2 mi (3.2 km) north of Carlisle city centre in Cumbria, England.
The station was latterly the home of No. 14 Maintenance Unit and occupied the various sites originally used by RAF Kingstown's Elementary Flying Training School during World War II. The site was usually known both locally and within the RAF by its shortened form of 14 MU. The site had also served for a short period in the 1930s as a civilian municipal airport for the City of Carlisle, but proved to be underused and uneconomic.
The maintenance unit was located on the northern edge of Carlisle, just past the present Asda supermarket, and spread across several different sites. The smallest storage site of Harker was 0.7 km north east of RAF Kingstown and, together with Heathlands which was 0.5 km north, was on the opposite side on the A74. The largest site of Rockcliffe was 1.2 km north west and Cargo site was 1.5 km south west. The maintenance unit was used by the RAF to store and maintain various pieces of equipment ranging from aircraft engine parts to firearms, ammunition to office furniture, aircrew clothing and small hardware items.
Routine requests for items were dealt with by civilian warehousemen during normal working hours. At night a uniformed RAF Duty Officer dealt with urgent and essential "flash" requests from operational flying stations.
In the early 1930s, the Carlisle County Borough Council opened Kingstown municipal airport, at the time outside the city boundaries on the land that is today the Kingstown and Kingmoor Park industrial estates. This early airport was a typical 1930s grass field airstrip with no metalled runways. Although used by the Border Flying Club as its base the new airport proved to be underused and uneconomic so the airfield was eventually sold to the Air Ministry in 1936.
The RAF installed concrete runways, hangars, a full range of administrative buildings and several estates of married quarter housing for officers and other ranks. The new station opened for operations on 26 September 1938 as RAF Kingstown and became home to two operational bomber squadrons flying Fairey Battle bombers with three man crews.
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