RAF Coltishall

RAF Coltishall
Coltishall, Norfolk in England
Station crest
RAF Coltishall Shown within Norfolk
Coordinates	52°45′17″N 001°21′26″E / 52.75472°N 1.35722°E / 52.75472; 1.35722Coordinates: 52°45′17″N 001°21′26″E / 52.75472°N 1.35722°E / 52.75472; 1.35722
Type	Royal Air Force station
Site information
Operator	Royal Air Force 1940-2006
Site history
Built	1939 (1939)
In use	29 May 1940 - 30 November 2006 (2006)
Airfield information
Identifiers	IATA: CLF, ICAO: EGYC
Elevation	20 metres (66 ft) AMSL
Runways Direction Length and surface 04/22 2,286 metres (7,500 ft) Grooved Asphalt

Royal Air Force Coltishall, more commonly known as RAF Coltishall (IATA: CLF, ICAO: EGYC), is a former Royal Air Force station located 10 miles (16 km) North-North-East of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk, East Anglia, which operated from 1938 to 2006.

It was a fighter airfield in the Second World War and afterwards a station for night fighters then ground attack aircraft until closure.

After longstanding speculation, the future of the station was sealed once the Ministry of Defence announced that the Eurofighter Typhoon, a rolling replacement aircraft, displacing the ageing SEPECAT Jaguar, would not be posted there. The last of the Jaguar squadrons left on 1 April 2006 and the station finally closed, one month early and £10 million under budget, on 30 November 2006.

The station motto was Aggressive in Defence. The station badge is a stone tower surmounted by a mailed fist grasping three bird-bolts (blunt arrows), which symbolised a position of strength in defence of the homeland, indicative of the aggressive spirit which Coltishall fighter aircraft were prepared to shoot down the enemy.

Work on RAF Coltishall was started in February 1939. The airfield, then known as Scottow Aerodrome, was initially built as a bomber station, on land near Scottow Hall. Following the established tradition, the station would have been named after the nearest railway station, which would have made it "RAF Buxton", but to avoid possible confusion with the town of Buxton in Derbyshire, it was named after the local village of Coltishall instead. The airfield was completed and entered service in May 1940 as a fighter base. The first aircraft movement at Coltishall was a Bristol Blenheim IV L7835 flown by Sergeant RG Bales and Sergeant Barnes.