RAF Finningley
RAF Finningley
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| Airport type | Military | ||||||||||||||||||
| Owner | Ministry of Defence | ||||||||||||||||||
| Operator | Royal Air Force | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Finningley | ||||||||||||||||||
| Built | 1915 | ||||||||||||||||||
| In use | 1915–1996 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 33 ft / 10 m | ||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 53°28′47″N 001°00′39″W / 53.47972°N 1.01083°WCoordinates: 53°28′47″N 001°00′39″W / 53.47972°N 1.01083°W | ||||||||||||||||||
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 RAF Finningley
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Royal Air Force Finningley or RAF Finningley is a former Royal Air Force station at Finningley, South Yorkshire, England, partly within the traditional county boundaries of Nottinghamshire and partly in the West Riding of Yorkshire, now wholly within the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster.
RAF Finningley was decommissioned in 1996. The airfield has been now developed into an international airport named Doncaster Sheffield Airport, which opened on 28 April 2005.
During the refurbishment of the Royal Flying Corps station at Doncaster in 1915 a decision was taken to move operations temporarily to an air strip at Bancroft Farm at Finningley.
This flight of aircraft is thought to have consisted of Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2c fighters. These fighters were used to intercept Zeppelin bombers approaching Yorkshire cities from the East Coast, in this instance, the heavily industrialised City of Sheffield.
Finningley became a Royal Flying Corps Military Airfield in 1915.
Finningley's participation in RAF Bomber Command's offensive may have been short but the station played a vital part in finishing crews with operational training for the bombing role. An early pre-war expansion scheme airfield the site, farmland in a well wooded locality four miles southeast of Doncaster was acquired in the summer of 1935. The Gainsborough-Doncaster LNER line ran a quarter mile to the north and Finningley village lay a similar distance to the east. The flying field covered around 250 acres (100 ha) with the camp area situated to the northwest between Mare Flats Plantation and the A1 'Great North Road' (now the A638). Four Type C hangars were erected in the usual crescent layout facing the bombing circle, with a fifth directly behind the southernmost of the line. Administration and technical site buildings were immediately to the rear of the hangars.
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Wikipedia