RAF Fylingdales

RAF Fylingdales
Near Pickering, North Yorkshire in England
Vigilamus
RAF Fylingdales Shown within North Yorkshire
Coordinates	54°21′32″N 000°40′11″W / 54.35889°N 0.66972°W / 54.35889; -0.66972Coordinates: 54°21′32″N 000°40′11″W / 54.35889°N 0.66972°W / 54.35889; -0.66972
Type	Royal Air Force station - Radar station
Site information
Owner	Ministry of Defence
Operator	British Armed Forces, United States: NORAD, SSN
Radar	Solid State Phased Array Radar System (SSPARS)
Site history
Built	1962 (1962)/3
In use	1963-Present
Garrison information
Current commander	Wg Cdr D L Keighley MA RAF

RAF Fylingdales is a Royal Air Force station on Snod Hill in the North York Moors, England. Its motto is "Vigilamus" (translates to "We are watching"). It is a radar base and is also part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS). As part of intelligence-sharing arrangements between the United States and United Kingdom (see, for example, the UKUSA Agreement), data collected at RAF Fylingdales are shared between the two countries. Its primary purpose is to give the British and US governments warning of an impending ballistic missile attack (part of the so-called four minute warning during the Cold War). A secondary role is the detection and tracking of orbiting objects.

While the radar station remains a British asset operated and commanded by the Royal Air Force, it also forms one of three stations in the United States BMEWS network (the United States also funds the cost of the radar units). The other two stations in the network are Thule Air Base, Greenland and Clear Air Force Station, Alaska. The data grab obtained by Fylingdales is shared fully and freely with the United States, where it feeds into the US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. To this end a United States Air Force liaison officer is stationed at the base.