RAF in Scotland (I-M)

• Opened: 1939; control transferred to British Army in 2012 but retained as a RLG (relief landing ground) for Lossiemouth 
• History: While no longer a fully-functioning RAF station, Kinloss Barracks airfield is maintained by the RAF, its flying history dating back to the start of WWII when it opened as a training centre, Hawker Harts and Airspeed Oxfords operated by No. 14 Flying Training School (FTS). Also located at Kinloss at that time was No. 19 Operational Training Unit (OTU), coaching bomber crews, its work intensifying through the war with Forres becoming a satellite for Kinloss, located 14 miles west of Lossiemouth on the Moray coast. Kinloss saw the establishment of No. 45 MU on site, working to update and improve a range of aircraft before they were forwarded to front-line squadrons, the location also becoming a large storage centre, around 350 aircraft located there by the end of 1943. The increase in traffic at the station saw its runways upgraded to concrete in the summer of 1942, with a further resurfacing in June 1945, post war, Kinloss becoming a centre for anti-submarine and patrol operations, a role it continued throughout the ‘first’ Cold War. The 1970s saw the site become the focal centre for the Nimrod fleet, a surveillance aircraft that played major roles in conflicts from the Cod Wars with Iceland through to the conflict in Afghanistan, Nos. 120, 201 and 206 among the station’s Nimrod squadrons; the cancellation of plans to upgrade the Nimrod in 2010 resulted in Kinloss being downgraded from a front-line RAF station.

• Opened: 1941 
• History: Located around 12 miles south west of Edinburgh, Kirknewton officially opened as a RAF station in November 1941, No. 289 Squadron operating a variety of aircraft including Hawker Hurricanes and Bristol Blenheims, the station also home to No. 309 (Polish) Squadron involved in army co-operation work. Later in the war, Kirknewton was primarily used as an Air Ammunition Park for No. 243 MU, a role that continued post war. When No. 243 MU disbanded in 1952, the US Air Force and CIA used the station for communications and intelligence tracking, returning to RAF control in the mid-1960s, and while the site has been used for a number of non-military purposes since, it is retained by the MoD for potential future use and parented by RAF Syerston.

• Opened: 1918; transferred to British Army in 2015 but RAF presence remains on site 
• History: It was 1911 that a balloon squadron of the Royal Engineers first arrived on the Fife coast, but nine years later that Leuchars officially opened as a RAF station, its dual role seeing RAF and Royal Navy personnel cohabit the site. No. 1 FTS was established at Leuchars in 1935, and when they moved south to RAF Netheravon in Wiltshire, Leuchars came under the control of RAF Coastal Command. In August 1938, the arrival of Nos. 224 and 233 Squadrons saw the station switch from training to a more operational role, with a Lockheed Hudson from the former unit attacking a Dornier Do. 18 over the North Sea on September 4, 1939, recognised as the first time a British aircraft had engaged the enemy in the Second World War. Post war, Leuchars passed from Coastal to Fighter Command, the Gloster Meteors of Nos. 22 and 43 Squadrons arriving, and in the 1960s Nos. 23 and 74 Squadrons flying the English Electric Lightning, cementing Leuchars in the fast jet QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) role; the Phantom followed the Lightning, then Tornados, before Typhoons arrived in September 2010. As well as its QRA role, the station was also a Search and Rescue (SAR) centre, flying a range of helicopters including Westland Wessexes and Sea Kings, but in 2011 it was decided to draw down operations at Leuchars’, the first Typhoon squadrons, Nos. 1 and 6, heading north to Lossiemouth in 2014. However, Leuchars became a RAF diversion location, around 40 full-time personnel employed to maintain a fully operational airfield, the importance of which became apparent in 2020 when the station returned to QRA duties for a short time while runway work was carried out at Lossiemouth.

• Opened: 1939 
• History: It was a few months before the outbreak of WWII that No. 15 FTS arrived at the station on the Moray coast, with aircraft initially stored in the open before construction of the first hangars, No. 99 Squadron following in November 1939 with Wellingtons. As the station’s bomber role increased, No. 15 FTS relocated south to Hampshire, the increased usage of the airfield seeing its grass runways struggle to cope, an engineering battalion of the US Army Air Force, USAAF, constructing a concrete runway which helped reduce flying interruptions due to ground conditions. Post war, the station was transferred to the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), becoming Royal Navy Air Station (RNAS) Lossiemouth. or HMS Fulmar, with a 26-year wait before it reverted to RAF control, 1972 seeing the SAR helicopters of No. 202 Squadron relocating, followed by the Jaguar Conversion Team training the RAF’s first SEPECAT crews – Nos. 6 and 54 Squadrons operational in 1974, with Jaguars flying out of the station until July 2000. It was the mid-2010s that the Typhoons and QRA role switched from Leuchars, followed in 2020 by the arrival of the first Poseidon MRA1, operated by No. 120 Squadron, and more recently the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail AEW1, a replacement for the E-3D Sentry AEW1.

                    Lossiemouth badge

• Opened: 1915 
• Closed: 1922 
• History: Not an official RAF station, Inchinnan was a civil aerodrome and the site of the engineering firm, William Beardmore and Company, who built airships and assembled aircraft during WWI at the location on the south side of the River Clyde, just north of Glasgow Airport. Eary in 1918, a V/1500 bomber was completed at the plant and departed for delivery to the Handley Page factory in Cricklewood, only to get lost en route, descending through clouds and alerting gunners near Gretna, who believed it was an enemy aircraft; landing near Stirling, the crew were arrested until their identities could be confirmed. Inchinnan was famously where the R-34 was built, an airship which made the first return crossing of the Atlantic in 1919.

• Opened: 1939
• Closed: 1943
• History: Located close to the southerly tip of the Machars peninsula in Dumfries and Galloway, RAF Kidsdale was used as a RLG for West Freugh (see later), and personnel worked closely with the anti-aircraft gunnery range nearby at Burrow Head; target towing aircraft were provided as well as remote-controlled Queen Bees (Tiger Moths) with floats, launched nearby by catapult for gunners’ target practice.

• Opened: 1940 
• Closed: 1958 
• History: A Chain Home Low (CHL) radar station was located on the west coast of the Isle of Islay, connected to sister sites across the coast of Britain, to detect approaching enemy aircraft. Closing in 1945, it was redeveloped in the early 1950s to become part of the ROTOR programme, similar to CHL, an air defence radar system aimed at countering potential attacks by Soviet bombers.

• Opened: 1918 
• Closed: 1919 
• History: Opening shortly before the establishment of the RAF in April 1918, Kilconquhar airfield on the Fife coast, north across the Firth of Forth from North Berwick, was available to the Avro 504K fighters of No. 77 Squadron.

• Opened: 1916 
• Closed: 1917 
• History: The airfield around five miles north west of Stirling was used as a HDLG (Home Defence Landing Ground) by the aircraft of No. 77 squadron, Royal Aircraft Factory BE2s and BE12s operating. The exact location of the site is unclear, with records indicating a HDLG was located north of the village of Gargunnock.

• Opened: 1942 
• Closed: 1948 
• History: Operating initially as a satellite for Teal (see later), No. 56 OTU Hurricanes and Miles Masters were among the aircraft flying out of the airfield at Kinnell, around 10 miles south west of Montrose, fighter pilot training the station’s primary role. No. 2 FIS (Flying Instructors School) used the station from September 1944, later becoming a centre for aircraft storage under No. 44 MU, and equipment storage under 260 MU, roles it retained until the late 1940s.

• Opened: 1935 
• Closed: 1945 
• History: While few details remain about the aviation history of the airfield located around 12 miles north west of Aberdeen, Kintore was the departure point for the inaugural scheduled service between Aberdeen (Kintore) and Sumburgh in Shetland in June 1936 [1].The RAF took control of the airfield, also known as Cairnhall, during WWII as a RLG, but there are few details of what units or aircraft operated from the site.

• Opened: 1940 
• Closed: 1945 
• History: No. 15 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS), based at Carlisle, used Kirkpatrick as a satellite airfield during WWII, aircraft operating from the site, around three miles north west of Gretna, included Miles Magisters and Tiger Moths.

• Opened: 1941 
• Closed: 1945
• History: A storage facility at a site around ten miles north of Dornoch in the Highlands was used by No. 45 MU based at Kinloss, a range of aircraft including Spitfires and Wellingtons were dispersed to the location and stored in nearby woods.

• Opened: 1942 
• Closed: 1945 
• History: While not an official RAF station, the coastal town of Largs was used as a seaplane reception facility, a number of RAF personnel based at Prestwick seconded to the site 30 miles west of Glasgow during WWII. For periods during 1944 and 1945, Consolidated Coronado flying boats of No. 231 Squadron operated a service from Canada to Largs, carrying critical freight and mail, and flying personnel in the opposite direction.

• Opened: 1941 
• Closed: 1945
• History: Situated close to the Culloden battlefield, just east of Inverness, Leanach was a civilian airfield from the early 1930s, and during WWII the station was a satellite landing ground (SLG) for No. 46 MU based at Lossiemouth, and No. 19 OTU based at Kinloss.

• Opened: 1941 
• Closed: 1945 
• History: The airfield at Lennoxlove was used by civilian aircraft in the 1930s, the area commissioned for wartime operations in 1941, the site around 20 miles east of Edinburgh, just south of Haddington, becoming a SLG used by No. 18 MU, aircraft including Vickers Wellingtons and Handley Page Halifaxes flown in and stored in nearby woodland; by 1944, there were in excess of 100 aircraft located at the station.

• Opened: 1913 
• Closed: 1914
• History: A temporary seaplane station was established prior to WWI on the north shores of the Forth Estuary at Leven, around ten miles north east of Kirkcaldy, the site, however, closed prior to the official beginning of the conflict in July 1914, most of the aircraft transferred to Dundee (see previous).

• Opened: 1916
• Closed: 1918 
• History: An aerial gunnery school was located on the western banks of Loch Doon in Ayrshire, around 20 miles south east of Ayr, an airfield created with plans for pilots to practise hitting targets located on nearby hills. The station was a few miles south of RAF Bogton (see previous), the two sites part of a costly plan for a military centre at the location, the scheme abandoned before the end of WWI due to spiralling costs.

• Opened: 1941
• Closed: 1947
• History: Created in the early 1930s as a civilian airfield serving the Highlands, Longman was commandeered at the start of WWII, but it would be 1941 before it officially became a RAF site, the location on the north side of the city of Inverness was believed by the Luftwaffe to be a seaplane base, which likely saved it from major attacks. It came under the command of No. 13 (Fighter) Group, with the Spitfires of No. 309 (Polish) Squadron, and the Westland Lysanders of 614 Squadron among the aircraft operating from the grass runways.

• Opened: 1916 
• Closed: 1919 
• History: An airfield around five miles west of Peterhead was used by the Royal Naval Air Service to operate non-rigid airships, notably the NS class blimps which carried out operations over the North Sea during WWI, with a focus on patrolling shipping lanes. A site to the north east of RAF Longside became RAF Peterhead during WWII (see later).

• Opened: 1941 
• Closed: 1944 
• History: A SLG was located at Low Eldrig, around 12 miles south of Stranraer, used by No. 18 MU based at Dumfries for storage and repair of aircraft including Vickers Wellingtons and Airspeed Oxfords.

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